The Changes and The Changed
by twilightfucker
Summary: "Arnold chuckles his cheeks glowing. She's flirting. He thinks she's flirting. Her face is bright and open and her eyes pull at his in a way that makes him want to giggle. Which is why he says something stupid.'" CH 12 is up - Rated M for later chapters.
1. Changes and the Changed

I like my town with a little drop of poison

Nobody knows they're lining up to go insane

I'm all alone, I smoke my friends down to the filter

But I feel much cleaner after it rains

She left in the fall, that's her picture on the wall

She always had that little drop of poison.

-Tom Waits

_'This is different'_, is the first thing she feels, then notices, then finally thinks as she hauls her massive suitcase up the last dirty stair of the subway. She takes a quick thinly veiled look of surprise around her. _'Gentle Dentistry used to be on that corner'_ she muses taking in the "luxury condos" and remodeled brown stones. _'Hmm' _she grunts, _'and birdman's building is gone too.' _But that was to be expected, she thinks. "It was a massive dump when I was a kid." grumbling she redistributing the weight on her person and heads down the block.

Helga Geraldine Pataki strapped with a massive backpack as well as a stuffed overnight bag pulls the rest of her belongings down the streets that once made up the place she called home.

She chastises herself as she walks, "Come on ol' gal with all the talk of gentrification on the news lately you shouldah known this place wouldn't have been spared"

Before she can consciously stop her next thought a small voice inside her replies _' but it once was, and you helped'_. But that train ended there. "I'm already nerved outah my brain just being here, no need to pile on a bunch of worthless memories to top it off", she mutters glaring at her general surroundings.

"Bleck" she states, or rather articulates with her tongue stuck out and heavy brows turned down.

"It's a wonder I still know my way around" she gripes as she passes another particularly hideous gray window-to-window monstrosity. She rounds another corner taking her off the main street sighing slightly in relief as the buildings and cracked sidewalks begin to look more familiar.

" Jeez Louise why am I so fazed? I mean Big Bob preaches it enough, 'everything changes', right? Progress progress progress! As the king of beepers always says" She snorts with the slightest hint of deject anger.

"Criminy this shit is heavy" she huffs stopping in front of a vacant storefront swiping sweat from her brow. _Space for rent_ she reads realizing soon after she was in fact standing in front of Mrs. Vitrellies flower shop.

"Awww shit" she says quietly realizing the old broad was probably dead by now. For a moment she lets her eyes relax and the sensory memory of sickeningly sweet flowers fill her nostrils. Even now if she squints she can see a stack of hair behind the counter and a football shaped head sizing up an arrangement of tulips, pussy willows and chrysanthemums. She shakes her head vigorously her eyes refocusing on her reflection. For a moment she is caught staring at the girl looking back at her.

"I suppose I've changed a lot too," she says without her usual hint of sarcasm. Long gone was the scrawny tomboy who spent a month peering through an assortment of lilacs and daisies just to get a glimpse of some shrimpy kid. She sneers, half at the face staring back at her, half at the memory.

Yes she had changed, she had changed and she was glad.

_'I mean how could I not, all kids grow up, that's all.' _

The days of wearing the same thing day in and out, or never brushing her hair, or ignoring her self in a mirror were gone; she wasn't a scrappy little girl anymore. It had never mattered back then because she wasn't pretty, hadn't been regarded as pretty, not like... _'What was her name? That girl with the disgustingly innocent act (even for a nine year old), Lila, right.'_ She had never been pretty like Lila or Rhonda or any of those girls.

She lightly brushes back a strand of her blond locks. _'But I suppose that changed too'_ she reflects momentarily. She then turns, rather violently, away from her reflection annoyed at her present vanity. Hefting her things back on her shoulders and arms she grabs the handle of her suitcase and continues on.

While she walks she reminisces.

If she thought about it she guessed she wasn't all that bad looking of a kid, she just wasn't girly like some of her classmates. She had worn pink every day but that had more to do with parental neglect and a lack of other options than any gender attitude. It was the way her mother had dressed her when she was sober enough to do so and her sobriety had been years in the past even then.

Hell she hadn't even really like the noxious hue per-se but instead wore it as a talisman, a statement, a declaration... She stops herself before her next thought out of habit.

Helga never wore pink anymore. In fact she hates any and all shades of it. _'And why not'_, she justifies. _'I just got sick of it. I changed, I grew up.'_ Sometimes it was difficult to accept just how much.

Helga 18, 5.7, and newly graduated would now be considered "quite a catch" to most men aged 1 to 100. Like most girls faced with the aggravations of puberty she was forced to take notice of her changing body. Coupled with a society, not to mention a father, who obsessed over her appearance Helga began to make an effort. Not as much as Bob would have like, and certainly not as much as a certain overly feminine sister of hers, but she had plucked her brow and would brush her hair on occasion. She was actually surprised at how little it took for boys (and men) to start harassing her.

Yet it was still difficult for Helga to accept her newfound place among the supposed beautiful people.

For a moment Helga can hear Stinky's southern drawl in here ear but just as quickly it is gone.

Just thinking the phrase makes her sick to her stomach. It took two doting boyfriends and a few stalkers to convince her she wasn't the ugly duckling she had perceived herself to be. Perceived and gotten used to.

She catches another glimpse of herself in the review mirror of a parked car. Even now her opinion on her appearance was modest at best. In all honesty she thought she was funny looking, attractive maybe, but funny looking none the less. Her eyes were too big and frighteningly blue, her mouth too wide. Her long hair, which at the moment was piled messily atop her head to combat the heat, was too thick and unmanageable. And her eyebrows had to constantly be maintained.

Yet it was her eyebrows, the one thing everyone had once agreed was her worst feature that now caused men and women alike to stop her just to complement them. For some reason her looks, which she thought still bordered on the strong side, prompted people to describe her as Amazonian or exotic.

She chortles at the thought, _'Viking is more like it'_ she thinks.

She recalls momentarily how at 14 she had been "chased" by a couple of Agents on the grounds that her brow would launch her into a fantastic modeling career. "Thanks but no thanks" had been her immediate reply thinking back to her short lived modeling stint in grade school. Unfortunately they had been as persistent as what-his-face. It took hurling a Snapple bottle at their Armani and Balenciaga clad feet to leave her alone. She chuckles at the memory and then frowns remembering her fathers less than cheery attitude when realizing the amount of cash she'd thrown away.

It wasn't like Helga exactly hated the act of dressing, or rather, the act of promoting her appearance. She just had her own tastes. In truth she had cultivated her own sense of tomboy artsy bohemian style. She supposed this drastic change in interest had something to do with her friend Ace, who having met her in high school proceeded to drag her to every thrift store in Boston before learning to maker her own designs. In fact the only time Helga did model for anyone was for Ace. She looks down at her self smiling at the thin stylish jean overalls she had made her wear for her first day back in the city.

Ace Hiroyama the real exotic beauty, born from an English and Bajan mother and Japanese American father had become her closest friend after her first day of high school. Phoebe and her were still friends but time and distance had taken is toll. Their correspondence had dwindled to a few letters and misplaced phone calls over the years. They kept each other moderately updated and phoebe on occasion came to visit, though it was never the other way around.

But if she was honest with herself she still resented phoebe for never truly encouraging her when it came down to a certain topic. Ace was better suited to her anyway. The girl's spitfire optimism kept Helga's less then sunny attitude in check and Ace never let what Phoebe would ignore slip. If anything Ace was pushier than she was.

She had been more than ecstatic when she heard Ace had been accepted to FIT. Helga herself had been accepted to Columbia for creative writing so the two girls had gushed over plans to find the perfect apartment. And so she had volunteered to check out possible places while visiting her old home.

_'Home'_ she thinks nervously.

She lifts her head from its pavement view only to notice her block coming up. The realization makes her steps slow and the uncomfortable sensation of a rather large ball of fear catches in her throat causing her to give a dry swallow.

Helga has not seen her mother since her parents divorce almost ten years ago.

After years of disinterest and lack of love Bob had finally decided to leave Miriam, but only after acquiring a younger woman and expansion prospects in Boston. Miriam, because of her spiraling alcohol problem had been deemed an unfit mother and Helga's father hadn't allowed any visits. The whole situation had been a mess. Not that her life before had been much better but there had been an equilibrium that had allowed at least a semblance of comfort for the young girl. If it hadn't been for Tina, the big boobed home wrecker, things would have probably gone on as before, her mother passing out behind the couch and her father directing his course judgments on all who fell in his path and then apologizing when it was too little to late. But that's not how it had turned out. Instead Bob had divorced Miriam and moved to Boston to expand his business and shack up with the bustier woman.

Miriam had got the house and her faithful blender and Bob got "the kid" and his collection of Olga's trophies.

For a while it had been bearable, or as bearable as it could be despite the fact that she was all alone without her friends, or rather, her one friend and one obsession. But then Tina had left and things got worse. She then began to miss the days when she went unnoticed.

It wasn't like your every day occurrence, the abuse. She supposed most of the incidents could be counted on her hands alone. Maybe some toes she muses apathetically as she stops in front of her stoop. Mostly it was just verbal abuse, you know the usual. She wasn't good enough she didn't live up to Olga or the Pataki name. Though she was a good student, even above average. The fact was she just wasn't the best, and anything less wasn't worthy. After a while she stopped caring, not that that made it any better. After Tina had left and the beeper business started to sag Bob picked up his own little drinking habit and then things had taken a turn for the worst.

It had only happened once, just the once. He'd been so drunk she's sure he doesn't remember.

If only she could say the same.

For a moment everything falls away. The hot summer sun, her childhood home in front of her, and then there is nothing, nothing but the oppressive weight of him. The smell of sweat and booze and something horribly sweet. The weight and the smell and the dark, the deep horrible dark filled with the sound, his breathe and curses and grunts.

She grips the handle of her suitcase tightly her eyes closed willing herself to breath, forget, let go. She shakes her head violently staring at the cool blue paint of her old building.

_'Why am I even thinking of this right now'_ she thinks desperately. Bringing a perspiring clammy hand to her face she looks around in panic. She then sighs defeated.

_'But at the end of the day wasn't it always your fault Helga old girl. You always had to push him. Always had to fuck with the man'_

"Such a will full child was I" she says as she begins to shakily drag her suitcase up the steps.

_'He was always sorry in the end wasn't he'_ she thinks blankly. Her mind then, as it always did when the memory cropped up, took her back to the stupidest day of her life.

It had been maybe a week or so after the "incident". She was still recovering from the bruises as well as the event itself. She can't remember what she had been doing at the time only that she was thinking about Olga and the last time she'd seen her.

The last time had also been the first time she came to Boston. It had been her first Christmas there and Olga came to 'settle' her in. It had been awkward to say the least.

Her father had doted all over her as per usual but for the first time in her life Olga would have none of it. She just could never, never forgive him for his "infidelities" she had said and instead spent her entire visit trying to form some sort of bond with her "baby sister".

Her presence however wasn't really welcome and she soon got the message. After she had left Bob's mood took a turn for the worst. She supposed he just couldn't take the snubbing of his favorite daughter. It was one of the first incidents to be counted on her finger.

Two years later remembering the event she wondered which life had been better, the life of non-existence with Olga or the one where she was punished for not being her. That night she had concluded non-existence.

The whole episode seemed like a bad TV movie now. Her whole suicide attempt hadn't even been that original. There was the locking of the bathroom door, the drawing of the hot bath, her father's razor.

Her thoughts trail as she stares blankly at the last concrete step before the platform. _'It's funny what you remember'_ she thinks. She couldn't remember the pain of opening up the main arteries in her wrists. Instead the feeling that came after is what haunts her still.

She almost laughs, _' I haven't thought of that night in years.' _She frowns rushing through the details in her mind.

It had been stupid, so stupid. She'd gone through all the trouble of doing it properly, drawing the bath, the candles, cutting down and not across and yet she hadn't taken into account Bob's fucking stomach. She had gotten all the way through tearing up the last of her veins when she heard Bob hollering for his supper. "Stupid" was all she had said too tired to panic. She hadn't even made it into the tub before collapsing. Hadn't even thought to turn off the faucet before doing the deed. 'Stupid' she had thought as her head slid down the side of the tub where she had been leaning.

'_That feeling, the feeling.' _

A strange waive of nausea rolls over her as she stands there. She recalls the water overflowing and wetting her back as her breathing became heavier and the sounds of the running water became louder then farther away. She recalls the swirling patterns of water and blood before it drifted out the door, before the electric purple black and white began to eat up her vision. The last thing she had heard before passing out was the distant sound of Bob's frantic and irritated screams of "you stupid, you stupid girl". And maybe just maybe before blacking out completely she had thought loving a certain boy hadn't been enough.

She turns around from her suitcase and begins to disentangle herself from the rest of her baggage. "Stupid, stupid. Guh why am I thinking about this right now!" she says through gritted teeth.

"It was stupid I was a fucking stupid emo 8th grader who didn't have the foresight to see that things change." she sighs glad to have the weight finally off her.

Free of her baggage she looks at the peeling paint of the front door. She stands there unable to bring herself to knock. Instead her memory takes her through the rest the sordid details of her botched suicide.

Her father hadn't let the hospital folk condemn her to an institution, and for that she had been grateful. Knowing him though, she was sure that it was more for the sake of appearances than her well being, but beggars can't be choosers, she had thought. Other than her father nobody knew of the incident. She had just graduated from middle school and her father had managed to keep the information from both her mother and Olga. She started off high school without a glitch and things finally started to take a turn for the better. Her father backed off a bit obviously feeling an uncharacteristic guilt. She had met Ace and boys seemed to start to take notice of her, boosting a little of her long forgotten self esteem. Her father was even made to consent to weekly therapy sessions so she finally had a place to vent. Not that she ever let slip the physical abuse. She was a smart girl and she knew what that would get her, either an orphanage or a home worse than her own. All that was left of the event were the scars. She cringes clenching her fists.

'_The stupid scars that made it oh so obvious that I'm a nut job.'_ God, she hates them.

For a while she had hid the marks with long ugly shirts and sweaters but at some point Ace, her one and only confidant, came up with a more "fashionable" solution. "Accessorize," she had said. Helga looks down at her bedangled and braceleted wrists. She smiles. It had taken some convincing but Ace had made it her mission to collect as many cuffs, bracelets, lace trims and African beads to hide Helga's hideous and telling scars. She'd even gone the extra mile after noticing the problem of slippage and created a Velcro cream band that wrapped around the length of each scar.

Today Helga's left wrist was adorned with a copper cuff that held a mettle worked gecko on its top while her right was clasped in blue Indian bangles.

She shakes her head and the bangles to get herself out of her head and ready to knock on the door.

It was a month into her senior year when Helga began to receive letters from her mother. It had been a complete and utter surprise, and yet, not unwelcome. If she was honest her mother's lack of interest in her life had deeply hurt her. Regardless they had struck up a lively correspondence and soon the two were planning Helga's escape from Boston. The plan was to stay and rekindle their mother daughter relationship while at the same time scoping possible apartments for the upcoming semester.

Now as she stands in front of her mother's home, her old home, another bout of worry sets in. She wonders over little things, like if they'll be able to hold a conversation or how her mom will even look. She'd received a picture 6th months ago but was still a little nervous to see her in the flesh regardless.

In truth the photograph had shocked her almost to tears. The affects of hard drinking and probably more had ravished her mother's once handsome face. Her hair had gone grey and stringy and her face was puffy. But she had been smiling, and at least there was that.

"Well here I am," she says eyeing the door nervously, "Criminy Helga just knock on the damn door already!"

Finally she brings up her clenched fist and knocks, quite forcefully actually, _'ugh, stupid frustration' _she thinks.

Helga begins to hear the shuffling sound of footfall and a few happy "coming's" before the front door swings open. And there is Miriam, her mom, standing with her arms open and the same smile from the photo (if not a bit brighter) splattered across her face. Before Helga can get a 'hello how are ya' out Miriam is crushing her against her bosom and sniffling her name. "Uh, hi" is all she can get out before her mother pulls her into the house wiping away the rest of her tears.

"Ugh sorry honey I just got terribly emotional!" Helga watches as her mother grabs her bags smiling at her through the water works "it's just that I haven't seen you in so long!" she says drawing out the vowels. "And you look, you just look so different, so grown up, gosh your just beautiful!" Miriam beams at her shocking Helga into silence. She can't remember the last time her mother had been so... _'So what!'_ she thinks. Happy sure, but that wasn't it. Excited maybe, or involved was more like it, and over her nonetheless.

_'I mean she's practically glowing and all because I'm here'._

Helga smiles and is surprised at how soft it feels. A great relief washes over her. This was the woman she was missing all these years, all her years really, the one who is genuine and purposeful, the mom who quite the beeper empire just to be closer. But then she second-guesses herself. And yet hadn't she forgotten that after her interest waned and her blender called to her again?

"Oh yeah it's ok I mean Jesus it has been forever. You're looking pretty well yourself Miriam" She replies a little reserved.

"Oh Pish Posh" her mother waves. " I suppose I look as good as a recovering addict does"

Helga once again is bowled over by her mother's lucid candidness. In her shock all she can do is follow her mother into the living room. Noticing her mothers calm smile she replies in similar humor "well I'm sure it's better than looking like an addict."

Her mother snorts and drops her bags by the wall. Helga takes a moment to look at what once was the trophy room. The walls have been painted a pretty cornflower blue. The decorations are simple and sparse. Her childhood home has been transformed, and she likes it.

"Dig the new layout Miriam it really works," she says waving an arm at the spread, her fingers trembled momentarily in nervousness as her bangles clinked.

"Well I've been a year sober, and when your sober you've gotta do something to occupy the fidgeting body and mind" she says plopping down on the couch motioning for her to join her. Helga instead takes to the armchair across from her and smiles.

"Uh so what else is knew with you?" she asks propping her feet up on the coffee table.

" Well let's see" Miriam says pausing to press a finger to her chin.

"I told you in my last email that I've started taking night classes so I can finally finish my degree in business. So my plan is to finish that up and do a start up company. Something fun and youthful because of course that's where all the money is!" she laughs "oh and I forgot to tell you I've taken on a boarder to raise some funds! Oh don't worry sweetie," She drawls, at the onset of Helga's frown "your room is completely untouched. I kept it for you. But oh Helga, I just feel like there are all these possibilities now that I know I can change, which is what their always going on about, you know, in my AA meetings. But goodness enough about me, I've got a celebrity in my house! You know I got all the girls at my group meetings to read your book. Oh honey they loved it. The descriptions of your father and me, Ha! Oh I bet he didn't like that one bit."

"err no he didn't" she replies, "but it's not really-" once again she is cut off. "Oh but the part at the end is so sad. How she leaves and he never gets to really figure it out!"

"You mean reject her," she states.

Yes, she had written a novel, a novel that was currently climbing its way to the top of book sales this month. This was the book that had granted her a college career wherever she chose and this was the book that finally freed her from the financial dependence of her father.

"I think he just didn't know what he wanted."

She gives her mother a curious look and replies with a note of finality, "it's a work of fiction Miriam"

"Oh of course honey but every work of fiction has a grain of truth right, or in this case a whole bag of it" she chuckles softly.

They sit in silence for a moment, Helga squirming ready to bolt; Miriam looking into her opened hands.

"Helga" her mom says quietly finally looking up at her, "I have to tell you how sorry I am baby, I'm so sorry" her voice light catches ever so slightly.

"Ah come on mom you don-" "no I do, I do" She cuts her off, "you know I remember that day you came back from pre-school." She says after a pause.

"You were all covered in mud and I, god I was already half drunk trying to bury the guilt I felt for letting you go off like that. I was frantic after you left but when I called the school they said you were there. And then when you came home you seemed okay. Happy even. I was apologizing saying if there was anything you wanted when you turned to me and said in your little determined voice 'can I only wear pink?' It made me laugh because, well I'm sure you don't remember, but it had taken me an eon to get you to wear that jumper with the matching bow. So I took you out right then and we went and got only pink things. You even made me get you 5 of those pink dresses even though they were huge on you then." She chuckles then quiets giving Helga a loving look.

Helga, for her part, sits stock still in her chair almost floored. The idea that her mother was willingly talking about this made her face unbearably warm "I um, no I guess I don't, uh remember that."

Her mother smiles at her replying softly "no why would you sweetie? You were just a kid. You were just a little girl and I was supposed to be your mom. And I'm just so, so unlucky for having missed out on that. Because," she pauses smiling wearily searching for the words "you're everything."

Helga's eyes went wide.

"You're a smart, strong and talented woman and I know that I had no part in that." She paused again, "you know, I love your sister and all but I always felt closer to you. You and I were the runts, the unwanted ones." she sighs, "In truth I was only praising Olga because it was the only time your father every noticed me. The one good thing he acknowledged me for. And it shouldn't have been that way, he should have loved me for you both, hell, he should have just loved me." She trails off with a shrug of her shoulders defeated.

All of a sudden Helga feels like maybe this isn't such a good idea. There was no way she was going to stay in this sad cafe. She could make up an excuse she'd stay here a few days and then say Phoebe wanted her all to herself or something. She could take a room at the boarding house, anything to not be stuck here miring in their shared depressing past.

"I, I, I, um" she shakes her head at the ground, "I don't know what to say?" her voice lifting desperately.

And then fast enough to give her whiplash her mother smiles brightly and claps her hands. "Well! I'm a downer aren't I? Enough of this sad stuff, I'm sure you just feel all icky! I put some fresh towels and whatnot on your bed. Olga's coming over for dinner to gush over you." she teases. "We'll be eating dinner late k? Around 9:30-10:00?"

And with that her mother is ushering her up the stairs. Before reaching the landing Helga's struck by a thought, turning she smiles bashfully

"Uh Miriam has Olga read the book?" she asks with a crooked grin.

" Oh yes." her mother laughs and with that she turns into the living room on her way to the kitchen.


	2. The Mementos she Forgot

**_The beginning of the end, _**

**_Of the heart lost, _**

**_was my friend. _**

**_The nature of that place, _**

**_Sends a sweet smell, _**

**_Around my head. _**

**_Oh well._**

**_All my toys are dead- _**

**_Unravelled at the stairs. _**

**_Open but who cares. Why-h-hy-hy?_**

**_-Beach House_**

Her bedroom was the same. So much the same that upon entering it a swell of conflicting emotions ran through her. This is where she had spent most of her time, this was where she had schemed, where she had been alone left to struggle through early adolescence, where she had been shunned and ignored. This was where she had written and dreamed just to get away from it all.

And yet it was surprisingly impersonal, the charming green wallpaper with yellow hearts, the stuffed dog above the pink bed, the picture of some generic white kitty by her door, things that had never had any meaning. All meaning had been hidden in her closet.

She is sure there is some sort of symbolism in that thought but shakes it away. She is just too tired. Last night had been long and stressful. She had stayed up late worrying and packing. Now finally she was here. Her arms ache from carrying and her head is heavy. She flops down onto the fuchsia covered bed only slightly registering her feet dangling off the edge.

'I was so small' she thinks.

And then she is asleep.

* * *

><p><em>Helga opens her eyes to what look like the inside of a repair shop. Old toys and music boxes clutter the plain brown shelves that surround and extend into the dark abyss of infinity. A warm light permeates the heavy air but she can't locate its source. There are no overhead lights. Instead pocket watches and lockets hang from the ceiling on invisible hooks. Helga has a sneaking suspicion that if she were to open one a burst of light would jump from within. There's this strange hum about them.<em>

_She does a slow twirl taking it all in. "Where the heck am I?" she breaths taking in the dusty dolls and fire trucks. There are other things too, photo albums, torn blankets, small baby spoons. "Maybe I'm not in a repair shop." she whispers reaching out to touch an ornate wedding ring._

_"Not everything in here is broken and some things looked downright expensive." Helga hesitates a moment before putting the diamond band back in its velvet case and walking on._

_"The kind of things people keep for some sentimental reason" she muses wiping a dusty photo. A pair of smiling brothers look back at her for a moment as she lifts an eyebrow at the unremarkable image._

_Her fingers sweep along carved animals, a patched up canvas, a box. Her soft footfall cease. The box wasn't really a box it was more like a small suitcase but deeper. Like a lunchbox but bigger. It was rather plain, or well, handsome rather than beautiful. The leather was a rich brown stained with a simple light red patter along its binding. Helga turns it to it's front grasping at its small rounded handle._

_She clicks back its brass clasps and lifts its lid feeling the tiny hinges creak. Her hands dip inside to catch against some type of cloth. When she steps back to cast some light on the soft material she finds she's disappointed. It is only a ratty hat. The jean material is fraying and soft to the touch, the brim wide and patched. She rotates it in her hands noting the torn initials on the inside._

_"There like some ones mementos... Like forgotten mementos" she says her throat strangely constricted._

_Something about that statement makes her heart ache as the small refrain of her voice bounces back at her from the dark._

_She turns, the light from some bright object suddenly catching at the edge of her eye. She turns fully, stuffing the cap carelessly back into its box. "And what is this now" she murmurs. The reflection still strong causes her to squint. The closer she gets the brighter it becomes, so much so that what the object is remains a mystery as she approaches. Her fingers stretch to meet it when-_

_"Hey Helga."_

_She spins clutching at her chest wildly. "Criminy football head don't sneak up me like that! Do you want me to punt your oblong shaped brains outtah this place?" she screams raising the fist that isn't stretching her dress out. 'My dress? My voice!' her hand climbs to her throat. She looks down at herself only to find a familiar pink material lying across her decidedly flatter chest. 'I'm the same' she thinks as she looks up._

_"Okay Helga... Whatever you say." The way he says it is the same. His voice is the same, his face, his eyes. _

_For some reason she's surprised to see he's still wearing his hat and wonders why. Everything about him is exactly the same except for, her eyes rove down, and widen. There is a large heart shaped hole in the center of his chest. "What the..." Before she can remark on its peculiarity he's speaking " well anyway uh, I'll just grab this and get out of your hair. " She doesn't respond only stands unable to move in her shock. _

_He gives her a curious look and leans forward "Excuse me"._

_Helga watches in utmost amazement as his hand plunges through her rather than around. She looks down to gape at her own heart shaped hole, his thin childish arm sticking through. She swallows back down a scream as she watches his arm retreat his hand clasping the glowing object that had called her from across the room._

_"Hey that's mine" As she says it the glow begins to fade and she realizes with rising terror that it is. It is her own it is her locket. Her mind is frantic as she makes a swipe for it._

_"No it's not" he replies a little bemused at her strange behavior. "Why would it be yours? Its got my picture in it." he looks down at the smaller him then back at her. "It just is!" She hears her idiotic reply almost a half second after she utters it._

_' I can't believe I just said that! How did it get there? Why did I say it was mine!' her whole body is screaming at her._

_'This isn't happening, I'm going to die!' _

_All the old feelings of embarrassment and shame begin to wash over her. Her skin feels hot and prickly, she feels sick, faint even._

_"Give it back!" she shrieks snatching at it again._

_"Now way!" he screams back._

_The force of his voice causes her to pause, but it is his hand as he places her locket in his heart shaped hole, filling it, that shocks her into silence. _

_"You didn't want it! You through it away!" He says pointing an accusing finger._

_"But it's not yours" she cries. Her breath feels nonexistent, the words sound heavy barely making it past her lips. She says them desperately taking a step forward as he retreats._

_"It's not yours either" he replies. He then is turning his back to her and he is running._

_And then she is running, chasing him through the maze of bookcases. "Give it back," she keeps screaming a terrible fear rising up out of the blackness. Row after row she chases him, his skinny legs carrying to the point just out of her reach._

_Rounding another corner he yells back "You don't deserve it if you through it away!" and then another corner, " you don't deserve me if you through me away!"_

_"What?" she breathes her throat constricting. Large tears begin flying off her chin only to become dust before hitting the floor. "Give it back," she is panting sure that he can't even hear._

_Bookcases begin to tumble over like dominoes. Diaries, party dresses, and shoe boxes filled with love letters begin to fall from their shelves. The lockets and pocket watches swing wildly bashing her, covering and restraining, and Arnold is running away running away with her locket._

* * *

><p><strong><em>In the city I wander worms get smashed under all those people are busy with things <em>**

**_And here I go crazy and there I get lazy like a calf that is growing six legs _**

**_My body's slowly figuring out how it fits in the moments of missing _**

**_Steady in my thoughts I soften the tight knots _**

**_My stomach's alright, though it's twisting _**

**_-Avey Tare And Kria Brekken_**

Helga awakes completely tangled in the pink chains of her bed sheet. Her arms above her reached toward ceiling, a scream lodged in her throat.

"What the fuck" she whispers as her limbs fall back onto her soft comforter.

In a moment of complete aggravated insanity Helga tears from the bed and into her closet. Cardboard boxes fly spilling pink notebooks and stuffed animals she has never played with.

Finally she finds it. The heavy English textbook weights her as she leans back allowing her to breath regularly. She knows that inside is carved out pages and inside those carved out pages is her locket. She doesn't open it. Instead she walks out of her closet and sits on her bed disoriented.

The palm of her hand meets her face "uugghhh... for crying out loud Helga it was just a dream. Just a dream..."

She places her hand back on the book, right over the heart. "...about that stupid memory of a boy"

Her chest is wet as if she's just run a marathon. "I'm just stressed from the trip, and all this, it's just some psychological bullshit, I mean come on, sometimes I dream about him, no biggie. I'm in my old room for cripes sake, where I practically worshiped the guy. In fact, I think I'll just get outtah here for a second and clear my head."

she looks around still slightly panicked. The walls shadows have darkened since she fell asleep. She glances at her phone by the bedside. "Only 8:30, dinner's not for another hour, plenty of time for a relaxing stroll." she stands, depositing the textbook on her nightstand its memento unlooked at.

Helga then stretches and turns. The sun, just starting to take it's late lazy summer dive, is passing the city skyline. She takes the one and a half steps to the window to marvel at its beauty. Upon lifting the wood frame she glances down at the strong branch just beneath it. Memories fly at her, as she looks at it. She remembers this branch. All the times she'd climbed in and out, running away or not, always unnoticed never told it was dangerous or to watch herself. She smiles touching the smooth wood, testing it.

'_I wonder could I still...'_

And then she is climbing out the window and down the tree. Her hands finding the same holds she hasn't touched in years. She plops down onto the cracked sidewalk her sandals making two satisfying clicks. She chuckles surprised at her impromptu circe de sole act. No one had been on the street to witness her little show, but she feels oddly proud of herself anyway.

_'I haven't climbed a tree in years either'_ she gives the tree a solid pat and starts off down the street.

The heat of the day has subsided enough to allow a cool breeze across her perspiring brow. As it hits she breathes in a familiar scent. Almost immediately mirages of her summers past begin to fill the empty streets. Boys playing stickball yelling juvenile taunts, girls screaming through the spray from broken fire hydrant and of course the local store owners and grownups leaning out of shops and windows to curse or yell encouragement to the children all around them.

At the end of her block she takes another sad look inside the empty flower shop. Mrs. Vitello used to hose them sometimes when she was in a good mood. They'd line up like they were prisoners of war and fall back one by one. She seemed to get a kick out of that. Helga turns looking back down her street and at the crack of sky above, the color a deep pink. Suddenly she feels very lonely.

"Where is everybody anyway? We used to raise hell at least to 11:00 o'clock on nights like this. What gives?" she speaks to the empty warm air.

_'Maybe all the kids grew up'_ is the answer her fuzzy head gives her.

_'Shame'_ she thinks '_this was a nice place to grow up_'. Somehow she felt, though maybe her childhood hadn't been great, it had been out here, in the neighborhood.

She stands there willing herself not to look left, or maybe to look left. She doesn't know. Earlier in the day when she had passed her thoughts had been elsewhere. Her head had been down; she'd been caught up in her own over dramatic memory to even let the geographical knowledge surface. But now her head is clear, or clear of those thoughts, now instead she is haunted by that silly dream and the memories of this place.

She takes a deep breath and turns. Down at the end of the block stands the boarding house. It stands almost unchanged. There stood the red house with the green door and there it was that little half moon window at the corner that looked in onto his bedroom.

_'If he still keeps a room there, if he's there at all.'_

She listens to the sound of her footsteps as she makes her way down the sidewalks length to stand in her old spot across the street. "If only I had my jump rope," she says sarcastically kicking a stone.

Helga had stopped asking Phoebe about him the summer after her "accident". Before she'd always kept tabs, like who he was crushing on, what sports he'd taken up, the clubs he was in. But after that summer she no longer could dredge up the emotion to ask. Phoebe had begun to date Gerald and of course that's all she was ever interested in talking about. Once in a while she'd bring him up, but like she was testing the waters with his name. Something like 'I know just what Arnold would say' or 'Gerald went to some thing of Arnold's it sounded cool but I had my cello lessons.' At one point Helga became so annoyed that she had lashed out declaring disinterest in all the old Hillwood gang, including Phoebe and Gerald's love life. They didn't speak for five months after that and only made up when Phoebe came to visit relatives at Easter.

"For all I know he could have moved or is going to college in Ireland" she huffs crossing her arms and staring up at the rapidly reseeding violet sky. "And what's more is I don't really care".

She had just begun to turn when a bright light popped on in the corner of her eye. A strong sense of deja vu struck her as she turns only to find the little half moon window ablaze. Her stomach churns and just like in her dream her body feels a curious tug and then pull. She crosses the street almost unaware of her body doing so. The next thing she knows she is standing in a familiar alleyway as if she were nine again and sleepwalking. She lifts her chin scaling the fire escape with her eyes recalling the feel of rust beneath her toes.

The window is closed and there is no football shaped plant mimicking a head on its ledge. She closes her eyes and leans against the warm brick of the opposite building. It used to be a shop for shoe repair, then a jewelry shop. She remembers getting her locket engraved there, she also remembers threatening the owner and then leaving without paying. She giggles at her self momentarily, 'god I was a ballsy kid.'

The shop is a bookstore now. She half wonders if her novel is for sale inside, if he'd seen it in the front display, read it even. She lets her eyes open onto his window again watching some inner shadow move across the ceiling.

_'What if it's him'_, she thinks.

_'How different would he look? Would he be tall or still short, how much hair would he have, would he still be a thin?'_ She'd kept herself off of Facebook and now wishes that she had given in, if only to prepare herself. '_Not like I really need to it's just...'_ her mind flails, _'and that might not even be him.'_

She lets the thoughts race unfiltered for once allowing the curiosity to fill her. Helga isn't one to allow her thoughts to take over anymore; she doesn't talk out loud to herself, or wax on about poetic nothings. She hasn't allowed herself this kind of unbridled run of nostalgic emotions in years. She's learned to channel those raw bouts of hysteria into her writing. Usually she kept herself on a tight rope, and for good reason. She's a private person who's never liked to attract the wrong kind of attention.

She wonders if he still smiles in that overly cheesy way, or if his voice still has that hint of nasal street slang to it. As much as she wonders how much he has changed her curiosity is more strained on the notion of how much he may have stayed the same.

All thoughts are emptied from her head as she watches the shadow deepen within the window. Her heart beat slows, everything slows, and then the shadow is lifting the glass and sticking his suspiciously similar shaped head out of its opening.

It is him.

He is backlit, his face covered in dusky blue shadows, but it is him.

Helga doesn't know what to do. She wants to turn away, leave, go back to her mother's house and eat dinner and forget about the strange emotions that swell upon seeing him. But she doesn't. Her legs and arms will not respond and instead press into the brick wall behind her, keeping her positioned to stare up at him. So she stares. Though it is dark she can just make out the slope of his brow and the glitter of his eyes.

She watches as he lifts a still skinny, but long muscled arm to swipe at his forehead. She can see that he has grown into his head by his wide shoulders. The light from the room silhouetting him runs down the length of his cranium and curves at his jaw. It is masculine and long, it stretches his once cute baby face out into manhood. She notices all to suddenly that his hat is gone and for some reason is shocked. The reaction confuses her; she's not sure why she's so surprised. She ignores the feeling and raises her eyes back to the window.

His hair is longer now and pushed back from his face. It even seems darker but it is hard to tell in the shadow. His nose is still the same and for some reason this makes Helga relax. In fact though she supposes he looks very different she also feels that he is surprisingly familiar. There is just something about him. Something she can't name. Maybe it is the breadth of his chest or the size of his hand as he runs it a second time through his hair. Or maybe it is the way he holds himself on his forearms as he looks up at the now dark sky. Maybe this is how she has imagined him all this time. Not that she had been imagining him all this time.

She hears him sigh.

'_Sadly?'_ she wonders as she watches him shift his weight of his elbows and ready himself to turn back inside.

That's when he sees her. Half inside his room and half outside the window their eyes meet and lock. In this moment it is like his eyes zoom in to meet her. The minutes slow down to their assigned clichéd time and all else stops.


	3. Romancing the Memory

**_I got a number on me I got a number _**

**_Won't make it through the high noon sun _**

**_I am my father's son, __I am my father's son_**

**_His bed is made but I was a hero early in the morning _**

**_I ain't no hero in the night_**

**_I am my father's son _**

**_I'll build a house inside of you _**

**_I'll go in through your mouth _**

**_I'll draw three figures on your heart _**

**_One of them'll be me as a boy, one of them'll be me _**

**_One of them'll be me watching you run _**

**_Watching you run Into the high noon sun_**

**_- Wolf Parade_**

The heat of Arnold's room is so oppressive that upon opening his door a gust of what feels like flames but is merely hot air flies out to meet him.

"oh my god it's like hell in here" he groans lowering his arm from the abusive heat.

"...Stupid law of nature... heat rising... sauna bedroom..." he grumbles switching on his lights and racing to the grey beat up air conditioner above his desk.

He jabs the on button, a preemptive smile spread across his face as he waits for the continuous stream of cold air. The machine fails to make its calming whir however and his smile falters and then falls all-together. He stands up, running an agitated hand through his hair flinging it backward in frustration. He gives the cursed object a good three whacks with his other hand before giving up completely.

"Why..." he groans rather loudly, extending the end for dramatic affect.

He stares at the ceiling, or rather the sky, rivers of sweat making trails down his back. He watches as the clouds reflect the last remnants of day. Soon it will be night and the little puffs will go by unseen, invisible.

"I guess it's the roof for me tonight," he laughs defeated, " there's no way I'll be able to sleep in this incinerator." He crosses to his closet checking to make sure the ancient sleeping bag still exists rolled up in the back. He pulls it out propping it against the wall then turns back to the just as ancient air conditioner.

"How many times do I have to fix this stupid thing?" he shoots the offending object a glare while ripping off his button down and crossing to extract it from its window home.

His long muscles jump as he leans over and hauls the heavy piece of mettle toward him.

"Granted we should have thrown you out when we took you from the kitchen." He cracks thinking back to grandma's protests when they attempted to put the old piece of mettle on the sidewalk. Something about electronics having feelings too.

"If I had the dough I'd buy one of your fancy new cousins they're selling now in the 21st century."

At that the old air conditioner seeming to take offense slips from Arnold's sweaty hands only to land squarely on his (thankfully) converse clad foot. His reaction is immediate; his hands shoot down to cradle his bruised appendage a silent howl on his face.

"You're going to get it now" he grits out through clenched teeth pointing a threatening finger at the now harmless AC.

A pleasant breeze drifts from the open window and cools his boiling temper. And as quickly as it had come his rage is gone.

'_Ughh, I'm just too hot'_, he smiles a resigned but bemused smile giving his foot one last rub before lowering it.

He then looks around, almost seeing the heat waves. '_Unfortunately I still gotta work in here_' he thinks, his palm collecting some sweat from his cheek. He snaps his finger, smiling to himself. "Ah so it is. We'll trade in ancient technology for more ancient technology. Just a matter of finding grandpa's pre war fans" he says to the wind shaking his head.

'_Lets open the rest of these windows first_.' He thinks, crossing to prop open his skylight. '_I'm probably letting in a load of mosquitoes'_ he sighs hopping off his bed and opening the half moon window by its side.

He immediately sticks his head out reveling in the cool summer air. The difference in temperature is liberating. He takes a deep breath and immediately is hit with the familiar smell of Hillwood summer, ice cream covered asphalt, car exhaust and the distant smell of the harbor. He smiles feeling suddenly nostalgic. Lately the emotion is a common one.

_'Nostalgic for what?_' he thinks propping his head up on his hands and gazing past the black tops. '_Nostalgic for the carefree days of childhood_.' But then he is wondering, 'Was I ever carefree?'

Arnold shifts frowning, he closes his eyes focusing on the thought. Not that he hadn't had fun as a kid, not that he hadn't enjoyed baseball games at Gerald's field, Halloween pranks and the boarding house high jinks.

_'And yet'_, his eyes open and drop to the dark brick of the building in front of him, there's a window just opposite and its curtains make droopy eyes of its panes. The truth is Arnold wasn't sure. If he thought back he guessed that it always seemed he was caring for something or someone. Whether it was small things like getting chocolate boy of chocolate, or Sid out of trouble with the grade school mafia, or bigger problems like saving the neighborhood. There had always been something. He smiles running a hand through his hair and leans farther out the window staring up into the now dark sky.

'_But there had been fun in that too.'_ he supposes.

He knows he had, or rather has a touch of something akin to a superman complex. High morals coupled with an insatiable need to do the right thing. Helping people has always been his concern, and he likes it, for the most part, he liked the satisfaction he got when he did it right. But now having graduated, about to leave childhood completely, now he feels a touch of sadness at having never relished in those years free of responsibility. His right cheek lifts ever so slightly. It had all been a responsibility he'd willingly taken on, and why? His cheek falls glum once again. Because, for some reason, he felt he had to.

Suddenly a memory hits him hard. The night air grows cold, and in front of his inner eye large white snowflakes fall lazily. He can smell the scent of Hillwood in the winter, peppermint, smoking heaters, and trapped sweat. The shovel in his hands is cold. His grandfather is only a few steps away, talking at him, in one of his rare moods.

"_Life's not all fun you know! It's not some turkey shoot. Ya gotta work once in a while. That's the trouble with this society no work ethic._" He hears his grandfather's creaky voice complaining as he hefts a large shovel of snow over his shoulder. He remembers watching as the white snow had arched over his head as if in slow motion.

His throat feels raw remembering that first snow day of his fourth grade year.

He'd been all ready to enjoy the winter wonderland with Gerald and the rest of his classmates when Grandpa had roped him into some good old-fashioned manual labor. He pauses remembering his excitement, riding down the stairway rail ready to run out into the drift only to end up in steely Phil's lap. He frowns to himself. That wasn't right, he hadn't roped him in, as usual he had obliged easily. As usual, because that had been the right thing to do.

Arnold bites his lip lifting his eyes higher feeling an embarrassing heat behind them. He always obliged because he was grateful, always grateful for having him, for having them, and a home because otherwise... He was always grateful for not being the orphan he truly was.

Yet he was always guilty too, guilty because they weren't his parents, and their home wasn't the conventional home and he resented it. Yes he resented it because everything about his life was sad, who he was, was sad and different and nothing was ever normal. Maybe happy but not normal so it never changed the sad of what he was, or what he is. The abandoned boy.

He sighs and pushes all of those thoughts out. 'Keep on the bright side kiddo' he smiles to himself pretending that it feels happier than it does. He makes himself think back to the rest of that day. "Because it had been a good day" he reassures himself.

The day had been more than half way over. Breaking from stacking wood he had stood with a melting snowball in his hand. He remembers how despondent he felt since it looked like he'd missed out on all the fun after all.

"_That's the problem with society today!_" He remembers how his grandfather had sneaked up on him hollering his earlier refrain. He remembers replying with just as much gusto its end "_got no work ethic!_". He remembers saying it like he meant it. Trying to appear happy, trying to help, to do anything for that wonderfully silly old stickler. "_Nooo they've got no __FUN__ ethic!_" He remembers the way his grandfather had pointed and laughed like the whole day had been a prank, like a distraction for another agenda.

He remembers that his grandfather had iced the whole street just for him. He remembers skating to his hearts content.

'Alright enough daydreaming' he thinks clearing his eyes of all memories. 'Responsibilities await, gotta make dinner for grandma and the boarders, fix Mr. Mcfaiden leak and work on the present and maybe just maybe fix the air conditioner. Ah who am I kidding I'm probably going to have to get to that tomorrow.' He pushes himself of his elbows and begins to duck his head back into the overheated room.

He stops. His whole body freezes and his eyes connect across the expanse that lies past his fire escape. Down in the alley underneath the shadow of Mackenzie's Book Emporium stands a ghost. At first he thinks she might be a trick of the light, a mirage, but then a gust of wind picks up light tendrils off her knotted hair. He leans in further his eyes squinting.

It is a girl, or rather a woman, with long limbs that are placed like a cut out against the brick. Her face is a black mask. Yet she is there nonetheless peering up at him with wide and frightened eyes. It is her eyes that have captured him, her eyes that have stopped him half tucked to return to his room. They bore into him with such intensity. All else about her is unclear but her eyes... her eyes are... familiar.

Arnold's breath hikes and he feels his body move to gesture, to call out, but before he can form the words the woman is running away. Sprinting from him and down the block pieces of her tied up hair coming loose and trailing after her.

For a moment all Arnold can do is hold himself there bewildered, his hands grasping the window frame. For some reason his heart is beating wildly in his chest. He nods his head back into the room a hand coming up to knead his breast as if to massage away the palpitations.

"That was strange..." he breaths.

Sitting on his bed for a moment, as the room gets cooler he wonders over the mystery woman. "Probably just a jogger stopping to stretch or something" he assures himself sucking in a long trail of hot air. He lets it out in a sigh thinking how silly he must have looked staring at some complete stranger.

'_Or maybe_'

He stands briskly sticking his head back out the window half expecting to find the woman still there, standing in the shadows.

"Helga?" he laughs nervously.

The probability flies quickly from his head, '_What would Helga G. Patacki be doing underneath my bedroom window_' he shakes his head at himself feeling even more foolish than before. Propping a cheek up with his hand he lingers out in the cool for just a moment longer. For some reason he still feels the jolt from her (blue?) eyes and now even more at the thought of his old nemesis. He lets his irises bear down on the brick and trashcans bellow pausing on the thought.

'_But maybe_' his subconscious whispers. '_Maybe it was her; maybe she's visiting her mother after all these years. Maybe she just happened to be passing by... or maybe..._' he shifts seeing her now beneath his window, one moment looking like the angry nine year old he once knew, the next a composite of possibilities, tall and blond, long limbed. '_...Or maybe she still loves-'_

Suddenly Arnold lets out a loud guffaw, laughing he turns back into his bedroom, a wry smile on his face. '_Wow, I really am a romantic fool_' he chuckles.

'_Now what about those fans_' he thinks, setting himself back on track. He knows that down in the storage apartment he'll probably find a few. Now all he has to do is get on with the task. He crosses to his door and leaving it open descending the steps.

**_I've been sitting here all day thinking_**

**_Same old thing ten years away thinking_**

**_Now my days are gone, memories linger on_**

**_Thoughts of when I was boy_**

**_Pennyfarthings on the street riding_**

**_Motorcars were funny things, frightning_**

**_Bow and hoops and spinning tops_**

**_Annie gretzel's lollipops_**

**_Comic cuts, all different things_**

**_Grandad, grandad you're lovely_**

**_That's what we all think of you_**

**_Grandad, grandad you're lovely_**

**_That's what we all think of you_**

**_Grandad grandad_**

The storage room is dark and musty. Arnold enters searching blindly for the cord that connects to the overhead light. Lumps of grey surround him as he makes his way toward the shadow of an old beat up couch. His hand comes up to wave back and forth three times before feeling the thin cord against his hot arm. He gives it a weak tug shutting his eyes against the blinding light of the bare bulb.

He plops down on the dull green couch beneath him sending years of dust up into a monstrous cloud. He gives a sputtering two coughs before surveying the junk that litters the room.

'_I should really do an inventory in here… See what should be thrown out.'_ The last time he'd perused this room he'd found a classical guitar and an old poster of Heddy Lamarr. He'd given the poster to Gerald after he'd ogled the "retro hottie" for the 7th billion time. Lo and behold Gerald found out it was worth a pretty penny. He kept and framed it saying it was too beautiful a thing to sell, not to mention a gift. 'Some of this stuff is probably worth something' He momentarily wonders at the value of the fans before spying a group of them poking out from under a once white drop cloth.

_'There they are'_, he thinks not yet moving to collect them. Instead his eyes drift to the empty lazy boy next to the couch and then the door. His eyes go soft. He can see his grandmother strolling in with her cowboy getup on and a blow up pool toy around her midsection. '_Please don't bury me on the lone prairie_' she is singing all the while strumming her ukulele. He chuckles to himself surprised at the random memory. '_Now when was that?_' he wonders. Arnold muses at his rising inability to place his recollections. He's beginning to chalk it up to age.

Yet there had been something important about that day. He remembers she'd been singing the same limerick over and over since breakfast. He remembers the continuous strumming of that small Ukulele. She still plays it every now and then, he knows, but only when she remembers.

He takes in a sharp breath. He remembers now, it had been his grandfather's 81st birthday. The day he'd been sure he was to die. The age that his granddaddy had died and his granddaddy afore him. It was the family curse.

Of course Arnold had thought it was all a bunch of hogwash. He remembers spending the whole day trying to get grandpa to just enjoy his birthday. He'd taken him ice-skating, corn dog eating, to a baseball game, even to the doctor. None of these, not even the doctor's assurances that he'd live to 110 would convince him that he was not going to die at the stroke of midnight.

However as the day had worn on even he began to worry. By the time his grandfather was bequeathing him the Packard he was almost spooked. That's where the memory of grandma was from. She'd shown up half way through Phil's oral will and testament singing that eerie song. He remembers feeling bewildered and maybe a little scared after watching her kiss his forehead declaring '_I'll miss you Slim_.'

In the end it had just been another kooky night at the boarding house. His grandfather didn't die and everyone had been up in arms for no reason. Poor Mr. Potts had been quite embarrassed that he'd cried. His grandmother however didn't seem all that surprised.

Phil not having finished grade school hadn't calculated the date of births and deaths of his ancestors and the supposed curse ended up not being when he was 81 but scheduled to clock in ten years later.

'_Ten years' he thinks, 'I was what, nine?_' He realizes then that his grandfather's curse would have been this year. "He would have been 91."

And he might have lived to see his curse fulfilled if it hadn't been for the bus driver.

Arnold feels the hot itchy feeling behind his eyes but doesn't fight it this time.

It was an accident, one without any blame. The man, Henry Peeter, (Arnold will never forget his name) died of a cardiac arrest at the wheel and no one had noticed till to late. The bus had barreled down an intersection before veering off onto a sidewalk killing three people and injuring 11, the injured coming mostly from the café it finally crashed into. Phil had been one of the first three.

Arnold had driven to the hospital in a complete daze. Somehow still believing, hoping beyond hope that they'd got it wrong.

The officer's hadn't had to ask him if it was his grandfather, his sobs answered that question for them.

He remembers just how _dead_ he had looked, how frail and old. He'd died upon impact, they had told him, but had broken his neck. They hadn't told him that it looked like a wheel had crushed it. He remembers the dark purple, almost blue under fluorescents, mark that ran from his grandfather's crumpled bare left shoulder up and across his broken chin.

Two hot wet tears roll down Arnold's cheeks but he doesn't move to wipe them away. Sometimes he still feels like there's no end to them, and that all he can do is let the pain of it wash over him, because he's not really over it yet. He hasn't really mourned it all away yet.

That day he cried harder and longer than he has ever before. More than he had for his missing parents, more than he had for his pathetic self. It was then that he felt overcome by the realization that his grandfather had been his father. He had been the one to teach him how to ride a bike, took him to ball games, spoke to him about girl troubles. All of that, all of what his grandfather had been had been taken, was gone, and all that was left was the container lying cold and lifeless, dead, beneath a white sheet. Just like the relics in his storage room.

Arnold sighs heavily, hiccupping a noise somewhere between a self-deprecating chuckle and a suppressed sob. Standing he wipes angrily at his tears then snatches up three heavy cast iron fans and exits from the room quickly, harshly pulling the cord as he leaves.

He remembers after leaving the cops he'd sat on an orange waiting chair for at least an hour, just crying. When he finally found the strength to head back home it had been way past dinner time. He remembers trying to prolong the trip even further by taking the long way home, stopping three or four times when his eyes got too blurry to see.

He just hadn't known how to tell his grandmother. He had just not wanted to. He had kept worrying about how she would react. Over the years she had gotten more unpredictable, her reactions more wild, and her antics more dangerous. He had worried the news would take her over the edge where she would never return, that she'd be lost in her fairytales and make believe. Instead the opposite happened, or well, at least something else entirely.

She stopped talking. She stopping smiling, goofing around, speaking in accents, celebrating events that never happened or took place at a different time. She stopped being his grandmother.

Arnold trudges up the stairs feeling thoroughly annoyed at the mood that's got a hold of him. He wipes away another errant tear with his shoulder before taking another step. For some reason he feels haunted. Haunted by those few months where she seemed to age years. Her whole demeanor changed. She finally began to look like an old woman. She began to walk with her face thrown to the ground, her back hunched, her eyes flat. She stayed like that for 6 months and then came into the kitchen one day and made 400 pancakes declaring an eat off. At the end of that day she asked, a curious lilt to her speech, where the captain had run off to and how was she expected to steer the ship without him.

A few days later she was calling him Miles and asking after the round-headed cutie he'd married.

They'd gone to the doctor a week later where he was told that his grandmother was suffering from dementia. That it was degenerative, that she was farther along than he would have hoped, and why they hadn't come to see him sooner. Arnold always just assumed that her forgetfulness and strange behavior was just an act. That it had been something to pass the time, something to amuse her self, and maybe some others with.

Arnold enters his room fully letting the storm clouds he had only recently shooed away descend over his head.

That first year had been real tough. With his grandfather dead, and his grandmother's health rapidly turning Arnold was left to deal with the boarding house alone. He had taken it all in stride however, using the extra work to busy his emotionally reeling existence. He buried his grandfather's death and all the other tragedies underneath the thin boards of responsibility. He took on a second job to help pay grandma's medical bills and in his spare time did major remodeling on the boarding house. The whole summer before his 11th grade year he was barely seen by his friends. Even Gerald couldn't get through to him.

He feels guilty about it now. Guilty that he couldn't talk to him and regretful that he hadn't. But he felt like he wouldn't have been understood, that no one would or could understand what he was going through. It had been tough because there had been no one to talk to… and then Lila broke up with him.

While plugging in a fan he prickles at the memory, not from the outcome of their relationship, no he supposes he was almost relieved when it came to an end. But her timing couldn't have been worse. To this day he can't forgive her for her lack of compassion.

He had seen it coming though. When his grandfather had died he'd noticed her removing herself from the picture. Her unwillingness to comfort him, her distance at the funeral, like she'd wanted to be anywhere but there. It's not like he hadn't understood her reaction. They'd been dating just less than two years and he'd come to understand his boyhood crush. She had never really dealt with her own mother's death. It was an issue that ran deep something he didn't realize till much later. She couldn't even speak about it to him, her boyfriend, and instead would always change the subject saying 'I'd rather talk about pleasanter things'. So he understood now how she could refuse to acknowledge intense emotions. Lila was not good at intense. Lila liked safe and tested, Lila liked simple and clean and Arnold's tumultuous emotions had been messy as hell.

So they broke up, or, she had broken up with him. Stating that she was '_ever-so sorry_' and that it was her and not him, and with that their two year relationship went up in a poof of smoke. She had said that she hoped they could still be friends but had recoiled at the face he had made, adding that only when he, 'found himself able to mature and move on' did she think it would be a good idea.

She was always saying shit like that. Acting as if she was ever-so adult when really all her mannerism were a superficial veneer, all her sophistication a pile a hooey. He understood now that it was how she coped. Her prim and controlled self was only a cover up for the scared mess her mother's death had left her in. But that was what he had fallen for, the simple, well-mannered, pretty girl he'd known as a kid.

He understood how she could coldly ignore his pain because she ignored her own. And the whole time he had stupidly refused to acknowledge his disappointment. He'd pined for her for most of his childhood and even up through middle school had kept a flame burning, but she'd always refused his advances. It wasn't until high school when she was enrolled in a different place all together that they began to date.

It all had been happenstance. Her father and her ended up in the boarding house during their fist high school winter vacation and while her father hit the pavement looking for another expendable job Arnold and Lila made out in his bedroom. When she moved out at the end of the month he had made her promise to just _try_ dating him. She had obliged and they had ended up _trying_ for two years.

And everything, everything had been a struggle with her, but he had chosen to ignore it because he had finally gotten his dream girl. But what he liked to do she didn't. Everything he tried to do to entertain her was met with judgment. She didn't like spicy food, or baseball, or camping out, she refused going to an action flick so he never even dared to suggest a horror. She couldn't ride backwards on a train, was afraid of heights, and wouldn't bump anyone in bumper cars. It was like she was afraid to feel.

The first time they had sex she had laid as stiff as a board. He had been so bewildered that half way through he'd asked if she was enjoying herself. She had responded a surprised 'yes! Ever-much-so just keep going' but his ego had taken a blow. It's not like he thought he was Casanova or something but it hadn't been his first time. The two girls he had been with before her seemed to enjoy his "company". He got her to loosen up later, but toward the end of the relationship their sex life had become so boring he began to fantasize. She just completely lacked passion.

He's not sure exactly when, but at some point around this time he began to romanticize the memory of Helga G. Pataki.

'Or maybe it was even before that' he muses plugging in another fan and switching the stiff knob button to on. He crossed over to the window where he'd last seen the mystery girl; the mystery girl he hoped was Helga. He propped the last fan on the ledge and plugged it in as well, letting the loud noise of the whirling heavy mettle soften his senses.

He had felt bad about it, still feels bad about it, but at the time he couldn't help the fantasies and daydreams that plagued him. They'd be making love and he'd imagine how Helga might moan. He would hear her scream his name instead of the suppressed squeals of Lila as she'd cum. He'd watch her braiding her hair in the mourning and instead of red brown he'd see blond and a pink bow. They'd kiss and he'd imagine how Helga might kiss, except he sort of knew how she kissed, or at least how her nine year old self kissed. All he had to do was update it and he could feel her wide mouth hot and sloppy against his, passionate and untamed, so unlike Lila's tense calculated lip nibbles.

He knew they were fantasies and nothing more. He even knew why he was having them but that didn't help sooth his shaken morality. The fact of the matter was he was drowning in a sea of ever-so niceties and it wasn't just from Lila but everyone. Everyone walked on eggshells around him; everyone was doing him little favors and treating him like an invalid. He simply ached for the straightforward brashness of his old bully, her passion, her spark, and yes her love. And that was the real truth of it. He'd pined after Lila for years and when he finally had got her she seemed like a paper doll, incapable of loving him and fond of giving small but aggravating cuts to his sense of self. Apart from his grandparents, and his best friend, Helga had been the only other person to truly love him.

He sighed dejectedly glancing at his watch. The time read 9:20. 'I should throw on that spaghetti' he thinks glancing at the buzzing fans. 'This should do for now, at least it'll be a little cooler when I get back up here.' He walks his way over to the bedroom door making to exit for the time being. He stops mid stride however and turns casting a look behind his shoulder at a pink book on an opposite shelf. Out of the pink book hangs a pink ribbon and it is this that Arnold looks at before shutting his door and heading down stairs to cook dinner.

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><p><strong>Note: Editing is a bitch. So about the fans. My mother has a collection of antiques and I out of curiousity checked to see how much they might run on ebay. Low and behold people buy them for like 100 -1,100. Not that I would sell ours they're just too cool. Hope ya'll weren't to squeemish with the death, depression, and bad sex in this chapter just tryna keep it real. Also I did a little more with Lila's psychological background. I get a little fed up with people always casting her as the slut or brain dead whore just because she's Helga's competition. Especially since in the show she's actually one of brightest and emotionaly complicated characters. Whatevs. hope you like and if you did well... review!<strong>


	4. The Definition of Home

**Don't own stuff... **

**Chapter IV: The Definition of Home**

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><p>They were all gone.<p>

All the original boarding members, his supposed family, disbanded, dead or dying. That was the thought that strikes him first as he peers down at the photo his grandmother had handed him at dinner. Now, back in his room, he stands with his own dish of pasta in one hand and the old photograph in the other.

He was approximately 12 at the time, he guesses, studying his anxious face. He remembers when the photo had been shot if only because grandma had for once remembered the correct date of Halloween. She was dressed up as Helen Keller and was refusing, or more likely, pretending she couldn't hear his worried cries of get down, as she stood stomping on the table. Behind her to the right was Mr. Hyunh and Mr. Potts dressed as pirates respectively. They were facing each other, fists raised, seeming to be in a heated argument, probably over who made a better pirate. To her left was a dirty white blob its back turned to the camera. It stood rifling through the refrigerator completely unaware of Abner, who on the floor, was slowly pulling the sheet with his teeth, which in turn revealed a cookie and milk guzzling Kokoshka.

It was a funny photo. Grandpa had always had a knack for capturing oddball moments. But the feeling that overcomes Arnold is anything but sweet. Instead, the old feeling of resentment washes over him making the recollection of every one of their departures resurface to his mind.

Arnold places his plate on the desk and sits himself down in the overly rigid chair.

Mr. Potts was the first to go. '_Sometime after this photo was taken_' he realizes. He had probably just turned 13 when Ernie had broken the news that he was planning on moving in with his "long time girl" and opening up a demolition company. He remembers how Mr. Potts enormous arms had wrapped around him and his grandpa. His grandpa had only muttered a one begrudging "I ain't your gramps" before breaking down completely, crying saying he'd miss him too. He left soon after that. Arnold got a nice amount of money every birthday, so he could only assume the business was doing well.

Mr. Hyunh departure had come at the worst of times, and even though he knew he shouldn't, he still resents his leaving the most.

It had been about three months after Grandpa's funeral. Arnold had been sweeping on the first floor. He'd come to enjoy the activity of methodically sweeping back-forth-back-forth across the coarse hairs of the rug. His mind released from its constant whirring, just wandering. In that state he'd go hours hearing nothing. Which is probably why on this specific day he had barely noticed Mr. Hyunh clutching the boarding house's only phone and repeating "Yes! Yes!" with growing emphatics.

It wasn't until he'd been lifted a foot off the floor by two surprisingly strong arms did he realize that he'd been there at all.

"Arnold! Oh Arnold the best of news!" he'd said still holding him in the air.

Arnold had replied his voice rather dull, "oh? What kind of news?" before wriggling out of Mr. Hyunh's grasp.

"My Mai has a baby! A baby boy and he is my Grandson!" It was almost like standing underneath the sun the guy was so happy. "His name is Andrew ah, just like you an A name. This is very good!" Arnold managed a weak but genuine smile and shook his hand offered his congratulations. "Yes, yes it is a very good congratulations. My daughter has a son and I am a grandfather! And Mai wants me to be with her and my grandson. And she has a job at a hotel restaurant for me, as a chef, yes!"

With a sharp pain Arnold realized all to suddenly what he had just said. He was leaving.

Mr. Hyunh realizing his insensitivity, in a more somber tone added "and she wants me to come right away."

"Oh that's, that's great Mr. Hyunh I'm so happy for you. So you'll finally be with your family. That's good" The word family had brought the taste of bile to his spit. "I hope you're happy there."

And with that he retreated up the steps to his bedroom, where he had sat in self-pity, having his own private panic attack.

It hadn't been so much the fact that he was leaving, but that once he was gone he'd be alone, all alone with no one to rely on.

And he was jealous, horribly ridiculously jealous. '_Why did it get to work out for Mr. Hyunh, and not me'_, he had thought. He was the one who had used up his own miracle so they could be together. He'd used up his one miracle because he thought if Mr. Hyunh and his daughter could be reunited, surely...

Before he left Mr. Hyunh gave Arnold a compilation CD with his new songs.

Mr. Hyunh had been the one to teach him how to play the guitar he had found in the storage room. Had even humored him when he said he wanted to learn something other than country. Had always tried to get him to write his own ditties.

Arnold puts the plate of pasta he's been eating down and crosses to his couch, picks up his multi task remote, and point it at the elaborate sound system across from him. He'd managed to update the old 90's equipment enough to support a record player, tape and CD as well as ipod dock. He chooses a familiar mix and presses play. Almost immediately Mr. Hyunh's deep country voice begins to croon making Arnold smile.

**_In the backyard of a redbrick boarding house_**

**_lies a daydreaming football among the grass_**

**_listening to the music of a house filled full of crazy fruit bats_**

**_the only kind in the States worth any brass._**

Arnold chuckles resuming his seat and picking up the plate. 'His lyrics were always a bit odd' he thinks twirling his fork and stabbing a meatball.

About a month after he'd left Arnold received a crisp white envelope. It held a letter detailing Hyunh's new home and his beautiful new family in his hesitant block lettering. Arnold had stood in the foyer reading it and feeling nothing. He had been crumpling the envelope with his left hand as he read but found it resisted. When he had turned it over to the back and upside down a slightly crumpled photograph drifted out.

He had stared at it, lying there on the floor, small round cheery faces mocking him from the ground. It was then; looking at that photograph that something went dark inside him. It was in that moment, all his ability to see the best in things, to make the best of things, was forgotten.

Because it had all been lie.

As much as they had said it, as much as they had pretended to be, they had never been a family. They were just a bunch of "miss matched misfits" like his grandfather had always said.

And he almost had moved, he had thought, he could have been growing up in Florida. Grandpa could be passing away now peacefully, like he should have, rather than being killed by a bus. The realization made him see what his grandfather had been saying all those years ago.

This was not the definition of home.

Home was where you lived with people who cared about each other, and helped one another, like a family.

"Like a family Arnold, that's what a home's supposed to be"

But he and the boarding house members, the so-called family, had pressured him into staying. Mr. Potts had said that they'd take care of him, even if grandpa decided to leave, because they loved him, like a family.

But that hadn't been true. They had left like semi-liked strangers, disappearing with an awkward goodbye and one last howdy before cutting ties all together.

He knew then, that it had always been a substitute for the real thing, for all of them. And now Mr. Hyunh had gotten the real thing. And Arnold would never have that. There were no more miracles for him. He was alone.

At the exact moment of that thought the sound of Kokoshka's television broke him from his dark meditation. The sound broke something inside him; the sound of it triggered some ugly physical reaction that spread all through out his body.

Kokoshka was the last to go.

Arnold swallows a ball of starch noting the beginning to a John Coltrane song he used to love.

He still feels bad about it. The whole ordeal, even though, he's sure now it had to be done. At the time Oscar had been living at the expense of the boarding house for over four months.

Suzie had finally left him. The reasons were unclear but he'd heard through the thin walls of their apartment something about his losing their baby girl gambling. He remembers watching her come home with the small child in her arms. Her face set. The next morning she was gone. Arnold had not felt bad for him.

All of his memories of the deadbeat, but lovable Czech, had been completely dissolved over years of moral agitation against the man. He drank too much, he was selfish and needy, he gambled away all of Suzie's money and worked her like a dog. When he finally gave her what she wanted, a child, he spent most of his time too sloshed to take care of the kid. One time he almost drowned her in the kitchen sink, another time he passed out while she was free to try and crawl out a window. Arnold had saved her both times. He could only guess at the other almost incidents.

Suzie had sent an apologetic letter a month or so later but Arnold can't really remember what it had said. At the time he had been too preoccupied with mourning to take any notice.

Oskar somehow had managed to beg off a month's rent from his grandpa and luckily for him the next month the old man was no longer around to collect. Arnold too weak with grief hadn't had the energy to do anything about it. Even Mr. Hyunh, before he left, had offered to help him kick Oskar out. But he had declined, not wanting to be completely alone.

But that had changed. In that moment he had wanted nothing more. It didn't matter how many people were around him, or said they loved him, he knew now, understood that he would always be, truly alone.

Or at least that's how he had felt.

The whole affair had been quite dramatic.

He remembers racing up the stairs, punching Kokoshka's door rather than knocking. When finally the door was opened Arnold had been struck by how old and dirty Oskar looked. He realized then that he had completely ignored him for the past couple of months.

" He he he. Arnold just the man I want to see. Come in! Can I get you a beer?" he had said.

Arnold had felt completely static walking into that room. He had surveyed it in muted horror. It was if a layer of grease was on everything. Every inch of furniture had its own stain. It smelled. The scent was wet and yet acidic at the same time. There were piles of garbage, which seemed to mold perfectly in with piles of junk that he assumed Oskar had won playing cards.

As soon as he had taken it in Arnold had replied with a vividly cold "No". His mouth moved to continue when Oskar holding the fridge open, rushed over him. "Oh eh that is good he he, you know because this, it is my last" and with that he tore of the bottle cap with his yellow jagged teeth and gulped the contents down, the whole action ending with an awful burp and his usual obnoxious laugh.

That had been the moment were he'd snapped. "Get the fuck out."

He didn't yell it; he had barely even uttered it actually. Instead it was more of a preemptive growl.

"Oh but Arnold! I forgot to tell you, hehe, I got a job!"

Arnold immediately knew he was lying but remained quite as Oskar crossed to him, in one desperate stride, clapping a perspiring hand onto his back. "But the thing is little buddy my boss, he says, he won't give me no money till the end of the month, so if I could just-"

"I don't care" once again soft, but this time crystal clear. "But Arnold-"

"Get the fuck out Kokoshka. I don't care if you have a job or not. I want you out, all your shit gone by tomorrow."

Immediately Oskar changed tactics, his subordinate grin morphing into a whiny scowl, his voice pitching to petulant and defensive. "No! Arnold you can't. This is my home remember! I can get the money. I can get the money just give me time to get the money! You can't make me leave! I won't go!"

His hands had been all over him, pulling him, prodding, begging.

"FINE!" He had screamed.

"Than you can get the fuck out now!" and with that he began picking up dusty disgusting knickknacks piling them to his chest and running down the stairs only to throw them on the stoop as soon as possible. He slowly and methodically through every last thing of possible value out onto the stoop, Oskar screaming and crying after him the whole time.

When he finally got down with the last of it, his small TV and a lamp, Oskar had made a desperate play and struck out. Arnold, immediately and easily flipped him with his outstretched fist, the motion hurling him through the door and onto his back. He landed painfully on a mound of his detritus groaning about how he had just broken his back.

"But Arnold we are family we take care of each other! You can't do this!" He had moaned lying prostrate on the concrete steps.

Up until that point Arnold had been on a murderous autopilot. At the word "family" it was as if his circuits had all but shorted.

"NO WE ARE NOT!" Every word was a punctuated scream.

" You are a BUM Kokoshka a BUM and you've always been a BUM and everybody knows you're a BUM! You are a lousy, selfish, DISGUSTING human being. And if by some HORRIBLE turn of fate we actual were family I would have disowned myself from you YEARS ago. YOU GOT THAT!"

People had stopped to stare at the exchange but Arnold hadn't cared. After his outburst he quickly turned on his heel and slammed the green door in Oskar's face, only to find his grandma shocked and a little awed behind him.

"Where'd ya learn karate Tex?" she had said.

He spent the rest of the day cleaning out Oscar's room, for reasons he himself couldn't conjure. The boarding house had never had many new comers to begin with. But at that time there was nobody interested in renting a room for more than a night.

So for a while it was just him and Pookie in the old red house on the corner of Sunset Arms. He'd clean the house, make dinner, look at bills he didn't know how to read and went to school.

Except he didn't really go to school.

A lot of the time he'd find himself down by the bay instead of in homeroom at 8:00 in the morning. His grades began to slip, and everyone, everyone, Gerald especially, had been worried about him.

Finally the principal had him called into the office where he faced off against her, the school guidance councilor, and a woman from social services. It was terrifying to say the least. Somehow they had worked out a deal. He was given the ultimatum of finding some help for his situation at home, so he could remain with his grandmother, and get back to being a good student "destined for great things" his principle had finished.

So he put an ad in the paper.

_Help wanted, looking for a part time house cleaner and care taker. Little pay but will be compensated with free room and meals_.

That was it.

He thought he was going to get a scrawny runway or a homeless person. In fact Kokoshka showed up a few times on his stoop, looking horrible, making his gut wrench with guilt. He'd let him do a few chores, out of pity, for some food or a bed if the night was bad, but always refused to give him the job.

A week had gone by and he had begun to worry. He'd started to play lies in his head to tell the principle about the great new help he'd hired. He'd have dark fantasies about the social worker coming to take him away from his grandma. He'd imagine two heavyset men in white suits carrying him out the door screaming and crying. He'd picked back up on his studies to quell the fear of being found out, but his teachers still nosy as ever, asked after his wellbeing, and it took all the energy he had just to smile. Lila had broken up with him. The kids at school were treating him like a leper. Gerald was the only one who stuck by him, but even he, at times lost his patience. The situation had not been good.

**The truth is that I never shook my shadow **

**Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle **

**Calling out 'faker' only get me rattled **

**Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle **

**Building your lenses, digging your trenches **

**Put me on the front line, leave me with a dumb mind **

**With no defenses, but your defense is **

**If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless**

Arnold's fork clatters against his plate. The noise rattles against the soft guitar strum drifting from his stereo.

**_Since this, I've grown up some _**

**_Different kinda fighter _**

**_And when the darkness come, let it inside you _**

**_Your darkness is shining _**

**_My darkness is shining Have faith in myself _**

**_Truth._**

He sits there and his eyes rest on the stains left from his sauce. His finger trails a downward curve. He stares at the mark and then moves to make an eye but doesn't. He sucks the red from his appendage and pushes the plate away to make space, his face concentrated into a contemplative frown.

**_I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon _**

**_Now which is the future you choosen before you go dying _**

**_I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining _**

**_Every little lie in this world comes from dividing _**

**_Say you're my lover say you're my homie _**

**_Tilt my chin back, slit my troath _**

**_Take a bath in my blood, get to know me _**

**_All out of my secrets _**

**_All my enemies are turning into my teacher_**s

_'It got better_' he chastises. He pulls out from under the table a small toolbox and larger mettle box and sets it in front of himself. His fingers dance deftly over tools, placing oil clothes and screwdrivers in their place.

**_Because light's blinding _**

**_No way dividing _**

**_What's yours or mine when everything's shining _**

**_Your darkness is shining _**

**_My darkness is shining _**

**_Have faith in ourselves _**

**_Truth._**

When all the tools were out in front of him he places the smaller red box bellow and moved to open the larger one. He pauses to lean over and tug at the mettle cord of his desk lamp. The chalk white table, slightly leaned, bounced the warm tungsten light, bathing everything in a moody glow. Arnold flips back the black box's lid and delicately places his hands inside. He gives the object a small smile before placing it on the table. The black box follows its brother beneath the table and Arnold comes back up ready to work.

"She's really going to like this," he says.

Before him sits an airplane, a PT-17 Penny model. He had built it himself, from the parts to the body. When he is finished it will fly.

"Yeah she'll really like this" He gives another smile to the partially painted sun yellow wing, as if the apparatus could console him.

**_I wanna only love til I'm only loving _**

**_I swear to god I'm only loving. _**

**_Trying to be loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, love..._**

**_Truth_**

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><p>Song: Truth by Alexander Ebert... I hope everyone gets the irony of his grandma asking how he knows karate... CAUSE SHE TAUGHT IT TO HIM! okay catch ya on the flip side. REVIEW!<p> 


	5. The Unfit

**Don't own Hey Arnold or What good does drinkin' do by Janis Joplin. Ejoy!**

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><p><em><strong>what good can drinkin' do?<strong>_

_**Lord, I drink all night**_

_**But the next day I still feel blue**_

She came on a rainy November evening, the type that tricks you into thinking it's night. He'd been washing dishes. They had a boarder for the night and Grandma had been so excited she tried to bake a feast. Half way through she'd wandered off to find her traditional Japanese cookbook. He managed to save half the meal, but still had to wash the dishes used.

The doorbell spooked him. Had nearly made him drop a soapy plate. At the time he'd been worrying about money and had hoped it was someone looking for board. Instead it was a drenched Miriam Pataki.

"Whew, it is just awful out there!" she sniffled at him stepping into the dry warmth of the hallway.

"Mrs. Pataki! Uh what- how can I help you? Would uh, you want to sit down?"

She had looked terrible. Her hair rumpled by the rain stuck to her face in thin gray/brown strands. She was wrapped in a hideously puffy parka, the color a faded purple. Dark blobs made patterns across the whole thing giving her the appearance of a diseased grape. He quickly moved her into the living room and left to grab a towel from the kitchen.

As he searched for a clean towel he tried to pinpoint the last time he'd seen her. It had been so long since they had spoken he was surprised he even recognized her

While grabbing a clean dishtowel a memory sprung from the back of his mind. She had been getting groceries last he saw her, an odd assortment of things in her basket, tomatoes, celery and a six-pack.

He'd overheard gossipy shoppers whisper as she collected her things, something about supposed displays of public drunkenness, and had felt bad for her. But before that she hadn't come into his mind in years. She'd just sort of drifted into the background of his life, only to be thought on when seen, or as something that existed in the past, with Helga.

But she was in his house now, and it made him feel strange and a little vulnerable.

"So, uh here you go Mrs. Pataki" he had said handing the towel over bashfully.

"Oh! It's Martin now uh, thank you, ummm, Alfred was it? Yes, just Miriam Martin now. I'm sorry I came in outta the blue and all. I just saw your add in the paper and then poof, flew out of the door, went out without an umbrella. So stupid of me."

She rambled while rubbing the wet out of her hair, handing the towel back when she was finished. He took it, confused and mildly curious at the women before him. He remembered her always being a little dotty, but it seemed over the years she had morphed into a full on cat lady.

But then she smiled, and her face became at once beautiful and young.

"Listen to me I make no sense, right?" She flapped a gloved hand at him.

" Here's the short story okay?" she looked over the rim of her glasses at him, smiling a deprecating smile Arnold recognized immediately. It was the smile he had adopted as his own.

" I'm an alcoholic." she sighed then laughed, "ugh you don't know how many times I have to say that now. Anyway, I'm trying to get clean and sober. Doing the whole 12 steps and all. My sponsor thinks it would be a good idea to get a job, you know a stress light job or something, and I just thought this would be great. I'm really good with people you know, and I'm good with my hands now that I'm off the sauce. I can even help you with some finance stuff, you know B, um Bob my ex husband had a beeper company. You remember. I ran it for a while, was pretty good at it, the finances I mean. I don't need much money, and it would be just good to get out of the house you know, I must admit the meals would help me get back to eating properly... and um, the company would be nice..."

She finishes her stream of words a little self-consciously, but for some reason, it endeared her to him. She was real, he had thought. Her flaws were open and bleeding, like his. She didn't try and hide her struggle; her candidness was her way of being okay with it, or trying to be.

So he had said yes.

At first she just did the cleaning three days a week, washing windows and dusty bedspreads and helping feed Pookie. But then she started showing up every day, because, as she had put it, "she needed something to keep her busy".

He was barely paying her as it was but she refused to take any extra cash, so he let it drop and just sort of enjoyed the company. She'd stroll in around 4:00 with her hideous purple parker and a myriad of smiles.

Tired smiles, frustrated smiles, struggling smiles.

Sometimes he'd help out with the housework. They'd work side by side. On occasion remarking on some triviality, but he had liked it that way. It felt good. It helped ground him. And she wasn't overly pushy or hovering, she didn't ask how he was every five minutes, she didn't suggest, or give advice. Even on the rare occasion when he wanted it, she'd shrug and give him a look as if to say, '_I'm not the best person to ask_'.

And sometimes he would catch her staring out a window, or off into space, her hands limp by her sides or crossed underneath hear chest, and in those moments she would remind him so much of Helga.

Helga in her unguarded moments, Helga when she thought no one was looking, and then Helga again when she'd notice him watching. It was like seeing a curtain come down or a wall being drawn up, something for presentation. She didn't do it exactly like Helga, not the mean blustery kind of way that he remembered. He had always assumed she'd got that from her father. But it was definitely a wall for the masses, a similarity nonetheless.

Since the moment she stepped into his home he had been itching to ask about his old bully but could never find the balls. At first he had thought she would offer up the information, like most mothers do, but had been disappointed with the lack of sharing.

Like most teenagers he'd gotten a Facebook and had gone through the phase of looking up everyone and anyone he'd used to know. And of course Helga had been one of the first to be researched, but he had found nothing. Once and a while, when he thought he could get away with it, without seeming over curious, he'd ask Phoebe how she was doing. Yet even she didn't seem to have much info, and more often then not, would give him this curious side glance, that always made him afraid to push it.

It wasn't until a month into his senior year, in which time Miriam had taken over the bills, reorganized all the financial papers, and had brought in new business by advertising near the train stations, that Helga had even been mentioned.

The evening had been a pretty busy one. They'd gotten three walk-ins and were housing three regulars. Everyone had retired for the evening. They'd put down grandma an hour ago, and were companionably doing the dishes together.

"You should really get a dishwasher boss"

She'd adopted the nickname early on in their relationship since, for some reason, she could never get his name right. "Since we made the 10% increase on the rent, which with inflation is perfectly reasonable" she reminded him, "in a week or two we'll have enough money to order one."

"We can save half that Miriam, put it into something more important, like the heating system, I can install the thing myself you know." he reminded her as well.

"Boss, you've got school work! I remember being swamped with essays and important tests when I was your age." She said rather dreamily.

"Getting ready to think about colleges and what-not right? Oh what an exciting time!" She gushed. "I bet my Helga is probably..." she immediately went silent, her mouth tensed and tight.

Arnold hadn't been ready for the mention of Helga's name, he probably visibly perked, his ears rising like a dog's. They had been quite for a moment, the sound of running water running between them. Finally Arnold found the breath to ask. "So how is Helga anyway" He'd said generically, because that's all his feeble mind could conjure.

She was quite for so long he wondered if she'd heard him.

" I um, I don't know."

His brow furrowed in confusion as he finished up the last dish for her to dry. "What do you mean you don't know?" He said a little harshly, and then correcting himself, " I mean, aren't you guys in touch?" he asked this time more gently.

"Well," she sighed, "since I ah, since the lawyers and the judge and all labeled me an unfit mother, no not really." she said distractedly, polishing a plate past dry.

"What do you mean?" he asked it as openly as possible. He felt afraid to stir her in moments like this. When she closed her self down for shop.

"Well I, when B, I mean when Bob and I divorced the lawyers thought it in my best interest to take the settlement of the house, instead of making a stink about seeing my daughter, which they kept telling me was a battle I'd lose because of my apparent alcohol problem, so uh yeah, I haven't spoken or seen her since" She'd yet to put the dish down, and he bewildered, was still grasping the last blue plate in his soapy hands.

"You mean you haven't seen or spoken to her in ten years?" he asked incredulously.

She stiffened at his tone and placed the plate down rather harshly. Grabbing the wet one from him she railed on defensively. "Well I tried! I tried to call but Bob was always so mean with me on the phone, and threatening me! Telling me, '_Miriam if you call this house one more time I'll sick you with a pack a lawyers that will leave you with nothing!_' and, and well, I was drinking really heavily at the time, and, and well." She was blustering at this point, viciously rubbing the plastic plate. "She never was interested in talking with me to begin with. I'm sure she's forgotten all about me by now." she finished lamely, once again holding on to the now dry plate with desperateness that made him sad. He took the plastic dish away from her and placed it on the dry rack.

" I'm sure that's not true." He said kindly, but assured as well. He knew that wasn't true, he was sure of it. Helga had always been happiest when Miriam paid any attention to her. He remembers a particular day in 4th grade when she'd shown up to school in a car, rather than the bus. She'd gushed about her mom driving her there, and then at lunch all the food that her mother had packed. Of course it hadn't lasted, but he'd been so happy for her in those few weeks.

"You have every right to see your daughter Miriam, and you're not an alcoholic anymore"

"Nope once an alcoholic always an alcoholic" she wagged her finger, her eyes closed as if to remind herself.

"Well, um, you know what I mean. You're not a drunk anymore. You're in control of yourself, you're getting better, and since you've been working here I've never seen you drunk. You should be allowed to talk to your daughter. You should give her the chance to make the decision herself, and I'm sure she'll want you back in her life, you just have to get in contact." He finished, a little embarrassed at his outburst. He wasn't sure how she'd react, if he'd overstepped his boundaries.

"You know what, you are absolutely right!"

Luckily it seemed to have been the right thing to say. She noticeably brightened, pulling her back straight and staring off up into a foreseeable happy future, a real possibility. But then her posture faltered and her eyes swiveled down back to him imploringly.

"But B'll just tell me to take a hike if I try calling again."

"Well don't call then, write a letter!" he cheered her. "Yeah just write a letter addressed to her, with no return address on the front so he won't know who it's from." He could see she was getting excited, and he was getting excited as well. She would write a letter and then she'd get one back, and then she'd tell him all about it.

"You know your right! He wouldn't read her mail he's not that interested... but, but what if she doesn't answer."

At that he gave her a quick brisk hug that made her glow pretty pink for a moment, "Well you'll never know either way if you don't write it." he reassured her.

* * *

><p>They got the first letter the second week in October.<p>

He remembers the day exactly because Gerald had been over earlier to brainstorm on Halloween costumes. They had ended up fighting good-naturedly unable to agree on a joint costume. Arnold had wanted to be two musicians from the Funk brothers, the back up band to most of the old Motown recordings. Gerald had said that was too obscure, which he knew to be true, but wouldn't agree to Gerald's generic idea of being agent J and K from Men in Black. He knew Gerald just wanted the excuse to dress in a suite, and he'd be short changed by playing K sidekick to Gerald's cool Will Smith.

That evening Miriam had rushed into the boarding house like a bat out of hell. Grandma had gotten so excited that she'd latched on to her hips and started a conga line with the other boarders. After they'd managed to calm her down Miriam showed him the letter. For some reason just handling the paper made him shiver. To think that she'd handled the same material, it made him smile and then frown at his girlishness.

"Well open it, I can't do it, you've got to read it to me. My hands are shaking so bad, it's like I quite drinking yesterday!" She giggled nervously.

He tore open the flap with his finger and produced the light pink stationary. The header had a cutesy cherub who was pointing its bow and arrow shaped hearts right out at him. He smiled scrawling over the elegant but strong cursive. The letter was written in pen, the color was a deep burgundy red.

"Well" asked Miriam her face crestfallen, assuming from his silence some bad news.

"Okay so, you want me to just read it? There might be something, you know, private," he said feeling a little bashful standing there with Helga's letter. He couldn't help but imagine her nine-year-old self, berating him with a raised fist for even daring.

"Oh I'm sure there's nothing like that, right, I mean what could she say really but hi how ya doing, it's been a while. haha" she finished, twirling a shaky hand for him to continue.

"Okay then" he said starting at the beginning.

"_Dear Miriam,_

_Sorry about the obnoxious stationary. I was at a loss at what to write this on, since it's like, archaic to even think of writing a letter these days. Not that I didn't enjoy yours. I just mean there wasn't an abundance of stationary lying around. I mean you may even like this kind, I don't know, I have the sneaking suspicion it's old enough to have been from the house in Hillwood._

_Anyway, I'm doing well. Bob's still a blowhard and school's still as boring as ever, but at least I'll be over with one soon enough, or well, on to the next stage of schooling. People keep reminding me college is better. I suppose I'll find out, if any of the stuffy colleges I'm thinking of applying to give me a shot that is. My best friend Ace and I are trying to get into colleges in the Big Apple, her for fashion, me for writing. Hopefully it works out as planned and we'll be living in some crummy brown stone by the end of the summer next year._

_On the romance front nothing much to write home about (haha). I've been bumming around with this kid Coulee for a bit but the boy's down right clingy. I think I may be giving him the old heave ho soon enough, I mean no point in dragging it out, it being the last year of school and all. So no story romances or anything, still haven't found someone to make my palms all sweaty and my heart race. Criminy, I may just be a mutant without the capacity for human emotion. It's a total possibility._

_Any-who I'm glad to hear you've quite the smoothies Miriam, can't say the same for the old Beeper King, but he's calming down a bit in his old age. At the moment he's jumped onto some "life-changing" diet or something to get back his "fit male figure". I don't know how a man his age can be that vain, but who knows, I definitely don't (nor care) but he's driving me up the wall with his health food junk. I like my pork rinds, coffee ice cream, and Oreos thank you very much. So that's about it. Sorry my life isn't more interesting. Maybe that will change soon._

_P.S. I don't want to make a preemptive stink but there's this small chance that I may be getting published? Yeah, wild right? Ace's mom works at a big publishing house here in Boston and their looking over some piece of crap I wrote for school. It's sort of ironic actually since I got a marked down a grade on account of the fact it was like, I don't know 300 pages over. Who knows, maybe I'll get some dough out of it. Sure could use it if I'm planning on going to college._

_P.P.S. write me soon mom."_

When Arnold picked his head back up from the page Miriam had tears streaking down her upturned cheeks. She was grinning like a mad woman. He was surprised to find that he himself was grinning foolishly.

It was a strange little letter. He could imagine her writing it stream of conscious, her brash turn of phrases popping up here and there.

So she was breaking up with her boyfriend, so she may be getting published, so she may go to school here. All these things and more zoomed through his mind in a matter of seconds.

Her last P.P.S had been erased and re-erased, and he could tell the 'mom' had been tacked on forcefully as if she'd made herself do it.

The letter was just so, so Helga, he had thought. The Helga he remembered, the potty-mouthed kid he had known, grown up into a strong-headed teenager/woman. He liked that he could recognize her there among the loopy slopes of her handwriting. That she wasn't completely changed.

Miriam had sat down to write a letter back that exact moment. Arnold had made dinner, and answered questions along the lines of, 'should I ask this, do you think she'd want to know about that'. Miriam had been noticeably happy for the next three weeks, literally dancing around doing the chores.

But then a month passed, and then another, and a letter hadn't come. He began to notice the sour smell on her breath when she would come into work three hours late. Soon enough she was coming only half of the time, and then half of that time. He hadn't known what to do, how to bring up the apparent fact that she was drinking again, without feeling like he was stepping out of bounds or something. What could he do, he'd lost his moral bravado a long time ago. His busybody was no longer busy.

One night he came home late from the library. A paper for his AP government class had been kicking his butt and he'd just spent the latter half of the evening with his nose in a book. When he had finally gotten out the sky was already dark. The night air had been devastatingly cold and a heavy snow that flew in sideways attacked him with every turn he took.

When he returned to the boarding house he had been a little miffed and more than worried to find Miriam not there. He asked one of the more helpful boarders Ms. Mthembu to make dinner and watch after his grandma while he went to go play check up at the old Pataki house.

_**My man he left me, child, he left me here**_

_**Yeah, my good man left me, went away and left me here**_

_**Lord, I'm feelin' lowdown, just give me another glass of beer**_

He had found her in the dark, freezing, the windows all open, snowdrifts piling up on the walls. She was stone drunk and passed out behind the couch, a bottle of Georgie vodka uncapped and half empty in her hands.

_**There's a glass on the table,**_

_**They say it's gonna ease all my pain,**_

_**And there's a glass on the table,**_

_**They say it's gonna ease all my pain**_

"Miriam! Mrs. Pataki, I mean Ms. Martin! Hey HEY!" He had shook her, lightly and then with rising panic as she lay there unmoving, harder. Finally he gave her a good slap and she came to, long enough to sob something like "worthlessssss, I'ma worthlessandwhy, no she wouldn't wantmeeee, why would she wantmeee? Helgamybaby oh oh…"

_**Gimme whiskey, gimme bourbon, give me gin**_

_**Oh, gimme whiskey, give me bourbon, gimme gin**_

_**'Cause it don't matter what I'm drinkin',**_

_**Lord, as long as it drown this sorrow I'm in**_

He watched her as she tried to bring the bottle back to her mouth, but he quickly smacked it from her hands. Her barely opened eyes watched the glass travel and then thunk against the opposite wall.

_**What good can drinkin' do,**_

_**What good can drinkin' do?**_

_**Well, I drink all night**_

_**But the next day I still feel blue**_!

"Hey why'dya do that, oh" She seemed to recognize him then, or well, "Oh Arthur, oh I'm sorry Idon thinkI cando the cleaningtoday." and then her face crumpled, " Ijustcant, I juss, she doesn't wantme, who would wantme, B didn't, they don't, I'mjusss a dumbbdroppoutdrunk, just like daddy alwayssaid *hiccup*"

"Miriam" he said as evenly as possible. Her behavior was a little more than scary, and he was trying to keep it together so she could focus. Focus on him, on getting out of here. He was almost positive she had alcohol poisoning. He kept having to slap, or shake her to keep her awake.

"Miriam I need you to get up for me okay. Can you do that? MIRIAM"

"Yes B?" She asked with her eyes closed

"Can you walk?" he asked again his teeth beginning to chatter from the cold.

"I ugh, my legs, Idonknooo, my legs I can't feel..."

That was all he needed. He piled her into his arms and walked back out into the cold; thanking his lucky stars he had brought the Packard.

That night he spent in the hospital, holding his head, and feeling all the misery of the world. He'd been pissed momentarily at Helga, but it didn't last. Maybe she hadn't gotten the letter, maybe her letter got lost in the mail, there were a number of reasons he told himself, but it didn't really matter, he was still stuck in the mire of someone else's drama. He'd felt guilty about having the thought but it didn't change the feeling.

The next week had been Christmas and Miriam had recovered enough to come for dinner. She'd shown up in this festive red and green number he was sure she'd found in the back of her closet. It looked horribly 80's but cute on her nonetheless. She looked much better, sober at least, she didn't drink anything but water the whole evening and afterward took him aside with a small smile on her painted face.

"Hey boss, Merry Christmas! I just want to tell you again how... oh you know, I can't thank you enough. You saved my life."

He'd tried to stop her, blushing furiously not wanting to remember the nightmarish evening, or the selfish feelings it had brought up in him.

" No, no, you deserve the praise, you're so good. I can see it now. What she saw in you that she latched onto. What we could never giver her. You're just so damn selfless."

He'd blanched at that statement. He was sure that they knew nothing of Helga's infatuation for him. It didn't matter either way because she continued on with her speech as if she had said nothing of particular interest.

"So I wanted to save this until after dinner, as a little present. You were right all along. I was being silly letting my insecurities and emotions get a hold of me. Now I know feeling down on myself does not merit binge drinking." She smiled raising her hand as if to present that little token of information.

"Turns out Bob got the last few letters I'd written and thrown them out of course. He's always been irrational that way" she paused raising her hand to her cheek, " but Helga, the smart girl that she is realized that I wouldn't just stop writing her! So she's written to tell me her email address so we can contact each other that way! And Bob can't stop us. Isn't that great!"

He was about to respond in the positive when a knock at the door derailed the festivities.

* * *

><p><strong>Editors Note: For all ya'll who don't know, Goergie Vodka is the foulest cheapest Vodka this side of New York State and it's what me and my pals first started drinking, back when we was fourteen broke and stupid. I hope I did Miriam justice, she's a complicated character to write. Half ditz half serious issues<strong>**of substance abuse and depression, you know, and all that jazz. So I'd sure appreciate some reviews on the subject. Good? Bad? I'll takem' all.**


	6. The Miracle

**Authors Note: **Yikes I am sooo sorry that took me so long. To be honest I've had this much finished forever and like usual it's the half of a much longer chapter. This took so long to get up because I wanted to finish everything in one chapter like I had said. So no more of that... except goddamn it I mean the next chapter is the last of this flashback crap! hehe... Okay on with the story. P.S. Hope everyone had a holiday affair to brighten this winter month! Oh and I don't own Trespassers William's Different Stars or Alexander Eberts Glimpses or Hey Arnold. I hope you guys check out the songs... let me know how you like em!

* * *

><p><strong><em>Chapter VI: The Miracle<em>**

**_So you'd sing a lullaby to get me to sleep_**

**_So it's no surprise my eyes are never heavy_**

**_For i've not seen you in the flesh for so long_**

**_That i'm not sure we would know each other at all_**

That Christmas Eve night had been a cold one, he thinks, as he sits tinkering in the claustrophobic heat of his room. He likes working on little projects like this. Letting his mind wander, working out emotions that he is too weary to unravel when his hands aren't busy.

He gives another tweak to the small engine of the little yellow plane, letting it rev up once than twice, listening for imperfections.

He remembers how it had snowed like crazy that night, like the kind described in storybooks. The kind that made you wonder why Christmas wasn't always a winter wonderland.

He remembers he had glanced out the window as he walked passed the living room filled with happy tenants. He remembers noting how fast and hard the snowflakes were coming down. He had thought for once the city would get its white, white Christmas.

Miriam and he, with the help of his grandma and Ms. Mthembu had made an awesome feast. It had been this great (unusual) mix of South African (Ms. Mthembu) and Japanese (Grandma) and traditional Christmas food. They even had enough money that year to afford all the extra trimmings like a Christmas tree. All in all it had been a great night. He was stuffed and had been feeling better about life, good, as if he was finally healing, or something.

What he really felt was a settling. A settling of heart and the hard palpitations that had been making him shed and re-shed his skin in an attempt to acclimate. He was beginning to feel normal again, all right. He was beginning to feel all right.

And then there had been a knock at the door.

He had been smiling as he made his way over to the front hallway. For some reason knowing that Helga wasn't an insensitive human being made him wonderfully relieved. Light even. Or had it been the alcohol infused eggnog.

He smiles while counting out screws in his hand. Of all the things to be thinking about before opening that door, it was funny now, such light thoughts preceding such a large event.

As he walked the length of the hallway he had been thinking about drinking. Playfully thinking that the one thing his grandfather's dying had given him was leave to experiment with the heavier substances. Hell his grandma had been pouring him wine at dinner since he turned 10. It was like a ritual, grandma would pour the blood red liquid into a knock off gold chalice and set it in front of him. He'd eye it with curiosity without reaching for it, because he knew, soon enough Grandpa would notice and deftly gulp it down finishing with, "Pookie your gonna turn him into a wino!" she'd cackle and he'd grumble about how insane she was and then they'd eat. Sometimes Kokoschka would go on about how he was raised on vodka, until either Mr. Potts or Hyunh would insult him.

But now there was no one to make a scene about him drinking. In the beginning after the house settled down to mourn he had thought he was forming his own habit, drowning his sorrows in the liquor cabinet, but he'd gotten over that soon enough.

He had taken another sip of his eggnog as he opened the door, ready to welcome the stranger into the warmth of their festivities.

For a moment he reflects on the pre state before the great shift in his life. The time before everything was torn and thrown up like confetti once again. He realizes now, staring at the mettle coils of the engine, that there had been such a short time between the small lapse of peace he'd felt before turning that knob.

**_I found peace, in my way_**

**_But it didn't last, beyond the day_**

**_I've had glimpses around the bend_**

**_But in the morning, I start again_**

**_I feel the sun, hot on my face_**

**_And I hear my blood giving way_**

**_I've had some glimpses around the bend_**

**_You know if I didn't, I'd have killed myself today_**

**_Now mama I'm so tired, from the bullshit_**

He hadn't recognized her at first. Her hair was short, very short as if she'd done it herself without a mirror. Grey streaks were woven through the snow and ice that clung to her scalp, the color a shade darker from the melted snow. Her face too had changed, wrinkles that he could only describe as elegant formed around her eyes and mouth. She was very thin, thinner than she had appeared in the photos that he'd seen, and smaller too. He towered over her, towered over both of them, this strangely familiar woman and the small child by her side.

His eyes quickly traveled between the two noting their make shift clothing and little luggage. He smiled down at the young girl but felt his cheeks tense under the strange gaze that jumped out at him from her odd shaped little head. Her face was almost completely covered with thin scarves, rags really, he recalls. He remembers how clear her eyes were, looking up at him with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, dried snot flaking around her cold pink nose. She couldn't have been older than 6, but then, it was hard to tell under her heavy hood and mass of dark curly hair.

She was clutching to the woman's left hand with a kind of nonchalance, as if she were giving the support rather than receiving it. Another glance revealed that the hand that she was clinging to wasn't much of hand at all. It was unmoving, the fingers stiff and brown, but before he could finish the visual inspection the woman had cried out collapsing in his arms.

"Arnold!"

That was when he realized, known, that the woman in his arms wasn't just another traveler looking for board.

It was his mother.

He looks up from the small nuts and bolts in front of him and stares blankly at the spinning of the black fan on his windowsill.

"Mom?"

He had whispered, the welcoming smile now a gaping hole of indescribable emotion. But had he whispered it, had he made a sound or was it just a thought? Was it true? He remembers feeling this question, grappling with the possibility of believing it, after all the years of waiting.

Too shocked to move her further into the hallway they had all stood there, the door open, big drifts of snowflakes landing and melting into his hair making him as wet and cold as the frail woman in his arms.

"Arnold!" the small little girl mimicked with the clipped precision of a person not speaking her native tongue. She wrapped her mitten stuffed hands around his leg and burrowing her cold nose into his belly.

"Oh Arnold, oh Arnold, my baby, my baby"

A strange feeling began to swell inside him, he knows now it was hope. Golden warm hope stretched through him at the reality of his miracle, she was here, his own Christmas miracle. He would finally have the family he always wanted. His mouth began to move, shaping and reshaping the word over and over again his voice slowly coming back to him.

"mom…mom…Mom…MOM!"

"Yes, yes, my son, it's really me"

The emphases she put upon the words _My_ and _Son_ threw a heavy knot into his throat. She reassured him through her muffled cries, touching his neck, his cheek, wiping tears he hadn't realized were there until the thumb of her right hand came away wet with them. Tears of joy, they had streamed down his face, he just hadn't believed it, after all the years here she was, and now finally he would feel whole.

"Where's dad?" He exclaimed hugging her to him, glancing out the door expecting to see a tall man appear out of the white. He was grinning like a fool he knew, but there was no better expression of the feeling that coursed through him. He was smiling and crying, she was here, in his arms, this was his mother weeping with joy at their being reunited.

Except she wasn't weeping, she was sobbing, long shuddering sobs that had him hanging onto her for fear she'd fall.

He felt a sharp pain in his right side and looked down to see an angry imp staring up at him. The small strange girl had bit him and was now staring lividly, her head jerking back and forth.

His shoulders sank, his mind went blank, but he had understood.

The hope that had so recently filled him dropped to his feet and slid out of him. He could almost make out its exit, or had it just been the puddle they had created trickling out the door.

His mother had begun to shake. He could feel her knees buckling beneath her.

He hadn't known what to say how to take back the question. He had tried.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry."

He rubbed her back with the hand not holding the forgotten eggnog. He then backed up with her, trying to get them out of the cold. His tears had stopped he realized, he could almost feel the hard incased mask of a man used to tragedy slip over his face. He began to feel suddenly and horribly claustrophobic. They clung to him, these strangers, these sad strangers invading his heart and unwrapping the gauze that had finally been applied. He couldn't unravel those feelings then, but now he's sure of that moment, what it did to him.

"It's okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry it's fine. I-" while the tears had gone the sob in his throat had not.

His gaze dropped down again to the child. Her oblong head was tilting back and forth between him and his mother. The scarves had come undone enough for him to see her mouth and chin. She was a handsome child with a determined little face. Her green eyes were such a true color, even more so than his, and they sparkled under her light bark colored lids.

There was something familiar in the way she turned her head to look back at the still wide entrance, the way she was obviously working something out in her little head, something more than the situation at present. But before his mind could come to a conclusion she disentangled herself from him and stamped over to the door shutting it hard against the wind.

He watched her with a sort of wonder, half hearing Mr. Mcfaiden and the other boarders complain about a bad draft. Out of the muddle of his mind he realized they were talking about them.

All of a sudden he had felt panicky, the realization that at any moment one of them could come into the hallway and see them there. See this almost homeless looking woman sobbing into his good shirt, and this strange child glaring at him looking as if ready to fight. He didn't want to make a scene. He didn't want the pitying faces questioning, asking what was wrong, pretending to be helpful when really all they wanted was to watch the spectacle.

He wanted to hide, he wanted to hide them, he wanted them gone, he wanted for things to return to normal, he wanted to be normal, he wanted life to be as simple as he thought it was, as it should be, he wanted to be strong enough for this, enough for it not to hurt.

He had wanted but it hadn't changed what had come next.

"Okay, okay I um, mom? Would you like to lie down I can-"

She was literally adrift in his arms barely holding her own body weight. She kept uttering unintelligible things into his chest as if chanting something to his heart. Sometimes he could make out sorry, maybe even his father's name. Whatever it was he felt it deeply, her high staccato cries rumbled into his chest making him feel faint and clammy. He was moving her inch by inch afraid of jostling her too much, or had he just been afraid, just plain afraid and stiff with it.

They'd managed to turn slightly, Arnold using a bit of the wall for support, when he heard a stifled gasp. His neck snapped to the side ready for the barrage of questions but instead, to his great relief, he found Miriam.

They stared at each other, Miriam's eyes darting across the room and landing on the small child behind them. Arnold, without alerting his mother to Miriam's presence, stole a glance over his shoulder and noted how the little girl was standing. Her knees were bent, like an animal ready to spring and she was silently sizing up the new woman in the corridor.

He looked back at Miriam whose expression had changed. She was still looking at the girl, a sad softness steeled over her features.

She then looked back up into his eyes and nodded, a clear sign of understanding crossed between them. She then turned to head back into the living room, to assure everyone of normalcy. She was only a second out of site when he began to hear the beginning of a commotion.

"Whose at the door, did Santa decide to honor us with his presence that old coot, you know he gave me a broken doll as a girl, I've got a few choice words for him"

"No, no I just checked, there's no one there, let's get you some warm milk grandma, or how bout more of that yummy Daifuku you made for desert"

He could just about see her shiny red and green backside, the slightest sliver of her slightly panicked profile. She was trying to save him from the scene his grandmother was about to start. He could see she was awkwardly trying to push Pookie back into the living room but to no avail.

"Oh get out of my way you ninny before I use my karate on you!"

He realized then that his mother had gone stiff in his arms. All her shaking and sobs had ceased. He could tell she was listening, her left ear picking up on the old woman's voice. She then began to shake again, harder this time, pulling away from him and toward the wall trying to skid herself along it as if to make for the door.

He had an arm still supporting her hip, and her jerky escape had jostled him so that he was now holding on to her rather than holding her up. He hastily bent to put his drink on the floor and turned to take better hold of her.

With his back to the scene he only heard the unmistakable sound of air being whooshed from someone's lungs and a heavy gasp after a nasty thump sounded. He turned, his body caught between two exertions at once. Miriam lay prostrate on the ground looking up in hideous wonder at the older woman who stood over her.

" I told you now, just you sit there and be good"

And then his grandmother turned and everything slowed. Her face went slack, here eyes traveled past Arnold to the woman in his arms. He too shot a glance at his mother, who now was frozen as well, a look of horror written across her face.

Pookie's hands came up to her chest and held them there, her slack jaw slowly morphing into a watery smile.

" Is that, is that Stell? Is that Stella!"

Her usual hearty voice was high and thin, warbling and rising like a musical saw.

" Oh my goodness, oh god oh god, Stella! Your back, it's you! Their back! Oh oh PHILL, PHIIILLL THEIR BACK!"

He watched as she turned and scurried over to bottom of the stairwell screaming the name of a dead man. It made his throat close on him even more.

He heard his mother audibly moan and turned back to her, noting the pail color of her face, the dried cracked skin on her lips. Where had she come from he had thought momentarily before his grandma stole his attention again.

"So where is he? Is that him with you there? Miles? Miles? No that's not Miles…"

The confusion stopped the forward tracks she had been making. Miriam, now off of the ground stood behind her, her hands raised as if to tackle the old woman if need be.

"No Grandma it's me, Arnold remember your grandson"

"Oh, Oh yes, young grasshopper yes, you looked so much like your father for a moment, mistook you I did."

He watched as her eyes clouded over. He could tell she was struggling, trying to make out clear what was going on in her head. The picture they must have made, he knew, did not add up to a happy reunion.

"Stella", her voice had been cautious this time, or, was it dangerous, "where is Miles? Where is my son?"

He had turned, as he supposed they all did to regard the woman in his arms. The room had been utterly silent. Even the noise in the living room had faded to a rustling of whispers. His mother had gone still in his arms again not even her chest rose and fell with breath.

He remembers the next minute happening very fast.

All of a sudden his mother broke free of him and stood, her knees bent, her eyes wild. She seemed to suck up all the air in the room with one gasp and then screamed, a noise so horrible he sometimes, in dark nightmares, still hears.

Her reply was,

"HE'S DEAD!"

And then she collapsed.

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note<strong>: So did I surprise anyone? Yep I brought back Arnold's traumatized mom, and who is the small girl with her hmm? As usual guys REVIEW I'm counting on ya'll for some feedback on Stella and the mystery girl. It's difficult introducing a new character without going into great backstory detail (which I'm sure will come later) but for now what are your thoughts? I'm not sure if i'm happy with the level of Drama. I feel like I'm going overboard but I don't know. And once again I'm sooo sorry about how long it took me to update. I'm like aching to get Helga and the rest of the crew in here but it'll have to wait another chapter (which I'll try and get up next month).


	7. Wanting The Unwanted

Authors note: Yay quick update! And it's a good thing too because this was a part of the last chapter and is the middle or the next chapter, and if I didn't break it up it would be waaay too long. This was extremely hard to write so PLEASE let me know how it is lacking in anyway, or if there were parts that I actually managed to write well. I have to say ya'll who've been reviewing have been so awesomely kind. Where's my constructive crit? haha. Not that I don't appreciate praise. And to those who are just reading I hope you enjoy, but please drop a line every now and then, I'll appreciate it more then you'll ever knoowww 8D... oh and don't own Glimpses, and Harry Nilsson's Blanket for a Sail (he's got much better songs but I thought the lyrics worked here) check them out!

* * *

><p><strong>Perhaps I'm crazy<strong>

**Still I'm thinking, there is change in the air**

**We were trying together (mmhm)**

**Now we're trying just to care**

**Now if we find peace oh let it stay**

**Let it last beyond the day**

**Now mama I'm so tired, from the bullshit**

**(Mama yea yea)**

**My soul cried, from the bullshit**

**(Mama yea)**

**And I'm so tired,**

**But I know I'll make it with you by my side**

**Mmhm**

"Shit" Arnold curses as two screws escape his fingers. He stoops beneath his workbench in a desperate effort to find them. " Oh god, there's now way I'm gonna see them under here now" he says, his fingers grasping at the dark.

"Might as well wait until tomorrow"

The digital clock on the table reads 3:00 AM. He scratches his head, and then back, massaging the kinks he's put in it through hours spent leaning over his table.

" I really have to stop going to bed so late" he says to the little airplane while scooting back and standing.

Arnold pauses there looking down on the unfinished toy, his mind races; he wants to stop the barrage of images, sounds, the whole experience of memory recall. He hates that he can remember that night so well. The small nuances of the seconds after his mother's collapse, how the child was the first to go to her, how his grandmother had made a horrible choking sound as if swallowing her tongue and then after how quick she was to revert farther within herself, to a place of complete fantasy.

She had made quite a scene.

* * *

><p>"YOU KILLED MY SON!" she had said, her bony finger raised, accusing the lifeless woman at her feet.<p>

"YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WANTED TO GO. HE WASN'T SURE!" and then her tone changed.

"OFF WITH HER HEAD! ON ORDERS OF YOUR QUEEN I DEMAND YOU REMOVE HER HEAD FOR WITH FROM HER BODY!" Her voice had been so fake, so affected, that it would have been comical if not for the fact that it wasn't.

Arnold had already begun to gather his mother into his arms and was making to move past his grandmother to the stairs. Unfortunately the old woman was unmoving in her theatrics.

"HER HEAD, HER HEAD!" She had kept screaming.

Finally Miriam took her moment and stepped between them, her back to Arnold.

"Yes your Majesty but don't you think we should bring her to the Tower first? So she can repent upon her terrible crimes, the crown being a Christian would want this yes?" her voice had been smooth and coaxing. She had learned to play this part very well and Arnold marveled as she directed the delusional older woman down from hysterics.

"Come with me and we shall have the royal priest called, does this suit you my Queen?" She had finished. Her arm had snaked around the old woman's back, and she lead her, one arm extended outward toward the stairs as if to show her the way.

Arnold had watched, the weight of his mother barely registering as the two women made it up the stairs and out of sight. He had been so thrown by the whole scene, so pained by it, that he couldn't properly react. He had just stood there gaping at the place were they had once been, slightly aware of a few heads peering out at them from the living room. It was the sound of his mother coming to that woke him from his stupor. She'd began to weep again, repeating the words "sorry, sorry" into his chest.

The fresh tears had propelled him up the stairs. He had tried to coo her with words he can't remember now. He does recall how strange his voice had sounded to him, as if not his own, strangled and an octave higher. He took to an empty room on the left, registering with relief that the bed had been pulled down from the wall.

He deposited her on the gray blanket backing up as she curled in on herself and away from him. It was then that he noticed her left hand, the stiff one that he had noted the little girl holding earlier. It wasn't a hand at all but a primitive yet beautifully constructed piece of carved wood that stuck out from her ratty long sleeve at an unnatural angle. The sight had sent a long shiver up his spine.

A dry swallow reflexes his mouth to open and he asks for little else to say, "Can I get you anything?"

She did not move. " There's plenty of leftover food downstairs, or I could heat up some soup? Mom?" He finished leaning in, just in case there was a whisper to be heard, but she said nothing.

"Okay then, I'll um, I guess I'll come back a little later to see how you are."

He'd just about turned around when the small girl pushed passed him and clambered up on the bed crying,

"Mama?"

He'd forgotten about the little girl until then. Her single utterance through him so completely that he'd stood as if hit by a lightning bolt.

'_It can't be'_ he had thought, her age was incongruent to his mothers, her hair too wild, her skin, her gate, obviously not his father's child, '_ but then whose, then whose?'_ his head swelled with questions.

'_Maybe she's been adopted'_ had been his next thought, but a pang in his gut knew this to be wrong. He could see, he had seen at first glance her green eyes even truer than his own, the rounded pug nose that both he and his mother had, and of course the curious shape of her head, but still she was too young, too young to be the aged woman's on the bed, and not his father's, but then if not his father's than whose. Whose child was she?

He watched as the little curiosity crawled closer to the woman, hesitant if not afraid. She raised a gloved hand but thought better of it and removed the rough and gray mitten before gently stroking a shoulder.

The action was so dear that Arnold was surprised by a small smile that made its way to his lips. It was short lived however. His mother instead of reciprocating threw her elbow and shoulder back violently knocking the girl backwards off the bed and onto the floor.

She landed with a harsh thud on her butt, a look of utter shock plastered to her face. It was the kind of look Arnold recognized as universal in small children, the look of surprise before the howl of pain. He started to cross to her in anticipation of her tears. He saw the crumple come but stopped short as the little girl took a heavy swallow, her lips pressed tightly together as if to hold the cry down.

It was heartbreaking.

'_She's just a kid,'_ he can remember thinking. That, that kind of brutal repression didn't, shouldn't come until she was much older, when the world demanded that she be harder, '_but she's just a kid_' he had thought, '_and she should still be allowed to cry'_.

" Are you okay?" he had asked hesitantly, for some reason he felt afraid of her. Afraid of her strangeness and, self-containment, her smallness, their similar shaped heads, their supposed relation, afraid because he yet did not know her.

She stood dusting her front, as if that were enough of an answer and stared at his knees.

She stared at his knees and he stared at the top of her head. He saw how tired she was, like they'd been traveling a while. It was strange to see a little girl with bags beneath her eyes and it made him immediately want to carry her upstairs and tuck her into his bed.

'_She probably at least is hungry,'_ he realized. " Well would you wanna come with me while..." he found the words stuck in his throat, '_mom_' he thought, ' _just mom'_. The name was so uncommon to him.

He'd never called anyone by that name, he'd never looked up into someone face, groaned it early in the morning, said it embarrassingly. Sometimes on rare occasions he'd refer to someone with that name but always in the past tense, and always hesitantly and with a small dose of bitterness.

But his tongue had stumbled for more than that. It was the idea of sharing the name now that he had it. She was _their_ mom.

"Why don't we let mom rest okay?" he said tasting the vowel and vibration on his closed lips.

" I bet you want to get out of those wet clothes huh? And hungry maybe?" he tried coaxingly as he stepped forward ducking a little to catch her eyes.

He had held out his hand.

The gesture had been a natural one. Something that seemed protocol, holding a kids hand, a display he'd seen a thousand times, a show of kindness if not general rule.

She continued to stare at him her mouth slightly open her, dark eyebrows low over her eyes. She looked somewhere between surprised and horribly guarded and once again he felt a strange twist in his rib.

"Come on, you wanna see my room? It's pretty cool," he raised a cheek for her " if I do say so myself".

She shifted from foot to foot and finally raised her eyes to meet his, and then she nodded.

He took her fisted hand into his and straightened, glancing once back at the unmoved form on the bed.

"Okay" he said opening the door, his back to the hallway. He led her out first since she still seemed hesitant to go, and then quietly closed the door.

He nearly screamed in surprise when he turned to find Miriam backing out of the room opposite there's. He remembers she jumped as well, a hand flying to her breast before covering her mouth afraid of making a sound.

" I put her to bed" She whispered crossing the small stretch to stand in front of them. She waved at the small girl who tucked her chin to her chest as if to hide there.

"I'm um, I'm sorry I couldn't uh, keep her... your grandma's one real tough bird when she wants to be" She forced a quite laugh pushing up her frameless glasses.

They stood silent for a moment, him still dumbfounded, and she embarrassed her face a similar shade as the red sequins on her dress.

"So I'll um, I'll finish up downstairs, you know make sure everyone's... well, clean up."

"Yeah, thanks Miriam, uh could you put on a bowl of soup for" He didn't know her name so he just stopped there.

"Yeah, sure of course" she said, still standing there awkward as if there was something else she wanted to say.

He knew what she wanted to say, ask really, and so he waited feeling all the air leave his lungs. Finally she tilted her head and asked, "So um, was that, is that your mother?"

He took a long breath through his nose and held it staring at the stairs. He hadn't meant to hold it; he'd meant to use it for the simple answer of yes. 'Yes that woman, the unresponsive lump on the bed in there, the howling banshee that came in, yes that's her' he could have thought of more, he probably had but the simple answer of 'Yes' still didn't come.

He couldn't exhale; there was no breath except the one he held. His throat wrapped around it. He bowed his head nodding trying to push it from his lips. His lips nodded with him like two hands showing their palms, the corners of his mouth drew down in answer.

He gagged panicked, he could feel the sweat collect around the small fist he was holding. Miriam frowned with him and then did something out of character; she hugged him.

* * *

><p>Arnold moves away from his workbench rubbing a tired eye and lifting the clinging shirt from his head. He flings it toward the corner where it lands in a slightly overflowing laundry basket. He sighs stretching, allowing the projectile stream from the fan to run across his hot skin.<p>

Mid stretch he catches sight of himself in the mirror strung up on the back of his door.

"Christ" he laughs at himself standing sideways and poking a rib.

"Oh god I'm a scarecrow" He groans turning toward the window. " Should never have quite basketball."

He can just see the streetlight that had failed to illuminate the mystery girl's face a few hours ago finally flicker on. '_I'll get up and run tomorrow_' he thinks distractedly his mind still hovering over the events of the past.

'_I should go see Miriam_'

He doesn't try to mask the obvious from himself. Yes, he wants to see if Helga did come back, if that in fact was her outside his window grown and beautiful. But he knows he won't, he's almost certain the idea is merely a fantasy. He feels ashamed for knowing he won't go through with it though, because he should see Miriam again, even if things hadn't ended well.

He'd never really gotten a chance to thank her, or at least apologize for his mother's outburst, but then every time he saw her on the street she always seemed understanding. It made him feel even worse for not trying harder to keep their relationship going.

Because he had loved her, in the short time they'd spent together he'd loved her, if not like a mother, than at least a favorite aunt, and sometimes, even maybe like a sister. They'd grown familiar. Her quirks, the differences between her silences, he had known them all. He had known she wasn't an emotionally physical person. Though he supposes he'd known that before ever meeting her really, through Helga. So the simple hug she had given him had meant a million words. It had saved him. The warmth of her chest against his the encircling arms had kept him from fainting in panic. He had been so grateful to her.

* * *

><p>She had been awkward after stepping away, but caring. She had said "Okay" and trailed off downstairs and he had felt okay. Okay enough to let go of the breath he had been holding and continue with the small girl, who was his sister, up into his room.<p>

It was funny how easy it was to play big brother.

Once up in his room he watched with growing affection as the small girl made a slow spin, her head drifting as if held by a string to his glass ceiling.

" I told you it was cool" he said a warm sort of satisfaction easing his tens muscles.

He had felt really strange as he crossed to undo her coat, and take off her shoes. There was a peculiar mix of familiarity as if he were just recovering from amnesia. Like he'd always been doing this, or at least wanted to be.

Arnold's eyes went fuzzy as his fingers deftly moved over barely threaded buttons and feet jammed into rotting shoes.

He just couldn't get over the events that had transpired. Everything was still coming down on him like hail. There were too many questions. Where had they come from, why did they look like 1930's beggars, why was his mother so… At the time he couldn't even make himself come up with the words. He wanted so badly for her to be the woman he'd always dreamed of, but watching her strange cruelty to a girl who called her mother was too much. He tried to think of more positive things. Like the girl herself, like the fact that he had a sister and it felt good.

He'd always wanted a sibling. When he was a kid he was always imagined an older brother to look out for him. Always jealous of Gerald cause he had Jamie-o, even if the guy was sort of a sadistic bastard. He'd been so desperate for that kind of relationship that he'd let some no good street kid with a motorcycle trick him into thinking they were buds, when really he just wanted his head to fit through a window. What had been his name, something ending in G.

'_God what was it with 90s kids and letter names_' he had thought while hanging the girl's jacket in his closet.

Even when he was older and too grown to admit he liked the idea of a sibling he daydreamed about it. Sometimes, he'd catch himself having little fantasies of teaching a younger brother to play ball, or gently reprimanding him when he got in trouble. He would even catch himself growing jealous, once again, of Gerald and his relationship with Timberly, even though they always fought.

He turned smiling to himself '_damn I've spent my whole life wishing I had Gerald's family, how pathetic_' he thought with a bemused smile.

He turned back around to her, noting her dirty shirts and wondering what he could offer her in terms of pjs.

"Cool" she had said repeating him.

Arnold wasn't sure if her use of the word was a question or in agreement. She hadn't said much but it was apparent that English was not her first language. He looked down at her and was caught off guard by her poignant stare. She seemed to be deliberating, sizing him up as if to calculate her actions accordingly.

She looked so tired he didn't know why she was bothering with anything else but commandeering his bed.

" Hey sleepyhead why don't you lie down while I find you some pjs okay?"

Instead of climbing underneath his covers she dropped to the rug and continued to stare, like she wanted to say something, or ask something but was too afraid to.

"No the bed silly, unless you like the floor" he said pointing.

"No" she said surprised, "Your? I cannot"

He gave her a curious look before crossing and picking her up by the armpits and plopping her down into his pillows.

"Sure you can," he said assuring her. She seemed to immediately melt into the covers as if she'd never felt anything as soft. He caught her eyes before turning around in search for one of his t-shirts. They had been large and wondrous, as if he had given her a ball of gold, or a lifetime supply of chocolate or something.

She began to speak quietly but with intensity to herself. All he could make out was his name and muy simpatico every once and a while.

He quickly rustled through his tank top drawer, soon realizing that any shirt was good enough. She was so small the length was sure to at least come beneath her knees.

He turned just as she was saying his name.

"Arnold?"

He liked how it sounded coming from her. She separated his name into two. "Arrr Nold?"

It was real cute he realized as he held up the shirt for her.

"I think this will do don't you?"

Once again she looked struck, and he realized she had asked his name in question.

"What is it? Do you have to go to the bathroom or something, el bano?"

She shook her head.

He watched curiously as she bit her lip and struggled to sit up properly among his pillows.

"Mama Stella" she began, he remembers that specifically because he'd found it odd that she'd used her real name. It made him think of Miriam, or well, Helga and her chastising childish voice.

"She say you maybe no querer…you no maybe want un hermana like me?

' Hermana, sister? Not want? You mean not want you?" his voice rose an octave in surprise. He felt his head overheat as he watched her eyes well up with tears when he failed to react quick enough.

It was just too surprising. He had a hard time getting over that his mother would say such a thing. Of course he wanted her! Having a family was all he ever wanted. The notion that his mother, that any mother would say something like that seemed wrong. And he was furious at his mother for even suggesting it.

It felt strange the rush of adrenalin that flared through him against her. He'd only just regained what he had ached and prayed for his whole entire life only to find it lacking. She didn't seem like a good mother, good mothers didn't say things like that.

* * *

><p>Arnold shakes himself from the reverie frowning. He hadn't thought that at the time, he'd still been too confused. Even now he doesn't like to think it, and probably tomorrow he'll be making excuses for her behavior over and over again in his mind, but he is too tired now.<p>

He contemplates getting up and brushing his teeth but his bed is too comfortable. He doesn't even want to turn off his stereo.

**_Way out on the ocean_**

**_Far beyond the seven seas_**

**_There's a tiny little boat_**

**_Faith is keeping her afloat_**

**_And a tiny little skipper_**

**_With his worn and tattered coat_**

**_You see the law of the ocean_**

**_Says that you shall never fail_**

**_Use your heart as a rudder_**

**_Faith as a compass_**

**_And a blanket for a sail_**

He thinks what struck him then was that she'd been so wrong. That if she knew anything about him she'd of known that he would've loved any possibility of having a family, brothers, sisters the whole shebang. That in reality she was a complete stranger and they knew relatively nothing about one another, and that was scary. Because now, all at once he had a family, people to belong to, unbreakable bonds and the like, but at the same time he felt disappointed. Or no, maybe not disappointed that was too concrete of a feeling, too harsh. Lost was better, he felt lost in the face of what it meant to belong to these people, these strangers.

* * *

><p>She had begun to cry while he'd taken his emotional roller coaster. They were big glob like tears, the kind that seem to come when you're too tired to hold them in. She kept repeating that she was good and useful something like that, and it had frightened him even more. Like she thought they'd throw her out on the street if there was no use for her.<p>

He remembers how easily he'd picked her up, how it didn't feel awkward or strange, how he had reassured her that she was wanted and wasn't going anywhere. He remembers how grateful she had seemed, how she hugged and hugged him speaking tired Spanish nonsense at him.

The rest of the night was a blur. He'd gotten her a bowl of soup from Miriam, after, they brushed their teeth, then finally gotten into their respected pjs. He'd fixed a bed for her on his pull out couch, just like he used to do for Gerald when they were kids, and then they had gone to sleep.

The lights had been off and they were both on their way to passing out when he realized he still didn't know her name.

"Pssst, Hey you still awake?"

"Yes Arr Nold what can I do?" she said sitting up. He saw her waver slightly as if still asleep, her eyes zombie like.

"No no, lie down silly" He said guiltily waving a hand at her. He hadn't meant to wake her up. In fact he had thought his whisper had been very soft. "I just realized I don't know your name"

She was quite for a long while, long enough for Arnold to assume she'd fallen back asleep. He'd relaxed back into his pillows ready to begin the process of drifting off himself when she spoke. Her voice was intensely quite but clear.

"They call me Rechazada"

"Rechazada" he repeated, it sounded familiar but then he hadn't taken Spanish since middle school.

The sound of the couch springs alerted him to the grey and black outline of her body as she shuffled to the foot of his bed.

"Pero please call me Zada, I like better yes Arr Nold? Zada?"

She asked it pleadingly her head bent to her small fists. She reached out and touched his foot briefly and the contact made Arnold spring forward. He caught her by the shoulder and lifted her up toward him.

"Hello Zada It's nice to meet you." He teased tickling her sides.

He'd wanted in that action to make her calmer. He needed her to stop treating him so foreignly, like some one who might hurt her. He didn't want to be kept at a distance, he wanted her to feel familiar, to be easy and tender, to ask him questions or maybe just even mess around with him.

He realized as she squirmed under his fingers just how quickly he had fallen for this little girl. How much he loved her though they had just met. He wanted to spoil her rotten with his love. He wanted to be the best older brother that ever lived!

The feeling overwhelmed him as he listened to her suppressed giggles. He felt himself grow emotional, tears pinpricked his eyes and the familiar lump from earlier in the evening came back with a vengeance.

He had a sister. Finally, finally he was not alone. He had a sister and he loved her and she deserved all his love. He felt cheated that he had missed out on loving her for so long. He felt like he'd been waiting to give this without ever knowing. That all the time spent pining for a mother was really just a need to belong to someone, to love, to connect with on this level. He wasn't alone anymore, they weren't alone they had each other. There was so much he wanted to do with her, for her. He wanted to teach her things, show her the neighborhood, show her off because she was strong and adorable and just so…

He couldn't even think the words he wanted to describe. He felt akin to her, he could feel it in his bones and that's all that it took. He wanted her to know he loved her because he knew she needed it, because he needed, hell they all did! He wanted her to rely on him, to confide in him. He wanted her to trust him, to make sure that she knew that she could. But he still couldn't find the words to say it. So instead he stared at her, both their green eyes glittered in the half-light. Her eyes filled with tickle tears and gratitude, and his mirrored relief and hope with lips that twisted and turned to tell her so.

He had felt like a fool. All those emotions and good intentions and he couldn't even explain himself to a little girl.

So instead he hugged her.

At first she was surprised and stiff, the same posture that had defined her from the moment she walked in. But then she softened, her curly head dropped and her cool cheek came to rest on his bare shoulder. A hot tear slid down his back and he shuddered, breaking. It was like a large curtain tearing the feeling that pushed itself up from his chest. A large suppressed hiccup of air chocked its way out of him. The muscles in his arms flexed around her and he began to rock them ever so slightly. The tears he had been holding in all evening pushed past the bridge of his nose and got lost in the bushy maze of her hair.

His chest and head hurt, the mask slipped, he wasn't in control and he was frightened of frightening her, so he let go, hastily.

But she didn't. Her small hands were petting his neck and hair. It was so terribly sweet he couldn't believe it. She, this tired homeless girl who looked like she had been through hell was comforting him, her estranged older brother. It made fresh tears prick his sinuses.

He laughed, it sounded wet and trapped in his throat. "Hey, hey Zada, I'm sorry" He said gently pulling her hands away.

"I didn't mean to cry, I'm sorry... It's just been, wow, a really crazy day...loco dia…" he held her hands between them on a pillow, their nails glowed white against their shadowed skin. He stared down at them not knowing how to make her understand. He heaved a great sigh and looked back up at her.

" Do you know what an orphan is?" He had said searching her eyes.

She shook her head emphatically, "Bastardo" she said in a hushed whisper, "Si like me".

His eyebrow jumped, "no no not a bastard, and your not a bastard" He told her assuredly, pausing before finding his train of thoughts again. "An orphan is someone without parents you see? My mom, or our mom she went off with my dad when I was just a baby, and well they didn't come back." He took another pause and rubbed his eye waiting for the lump to drift down enough to continue.

" And it was hard you know to not have parents, I mean I had my grandparents, you met grandma but they're old you know and, well grandpa he's dead and..." One of her small hands came up and brushed away an errant tear that had made its way out. It made him feel ashamed and elated all at once. He didn't know how she could be so understanding and so young.

"And grandma's probably not going to last very long" At this point he wasn't sure if she really got what he was saying, how good her english was, if she knew what he was talking about at all, but it felt good to say it nonetheless.

"I thought that I'd be really alone you know?"

His voice had dropped to a whisper and he couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes. They were too old, too wise for him, they empathized and it worried and awed him all at the same time.

"I'm so glad your here that's all I wanted to say. I'm very happy you're my sister."

He rubbed her hands between his, meaning to illustrate how much the statement was true.

He remembers looking up at her then and her curious expression. At the time he thought that she didn't understand but now he knows that she was just unused to the affection. He continued a little flustered, feeling a great need for her to get it.

"I want you very very much... do you understand?"

Her reaction had been almost immediate. Her hands came up slowly from his and traced the outline of his face. It was as if she were drawing him in to her reality, that he was in fact tangible and real and that his words were sincere. When she was satisfied with her inspection a noise that was both at once a gasp and sigh rocketed from her lips and she smashed herself into him nearly knocked them both off the bed. She continued to cry out in a string of Spanish words that looped around him causing him to giggle tiredly as well.

He'd said something silly like, "Okay so obviously I need to go get a Spanish/English dictionary," and, "do you mind being my tutor" while she continued to mucho and muy complements at him.

And then they had fallen asleep.

* * *

><p>Authors Note: okay guys come on do it, review please, don't make me beg. I want honest opinions! Your input is important to meee! Trying to convey Arnold's feelings at this particular moment was massively difficult, and adding a sister to the mix, well it wasn't easy so let me know how it went! So really next chapter will bring us up to date and we'll get more Helga action, which I for one am excited about!<p> 


	8. Gifts and Ribbons

Arnold wakes with a start to the blaring noise of New Orleans drums and trumpets. The shock is so great that he is catapults himself from his awkward sleeping position to an upward vertical stand that lasts all of 5 seconds. He falls quickly back, experiencing the strange sensation of blood working its way through his legs.

"I fell asleep?" He asks, his tongue brushing over fuzzy teeth.

He's still in his clothes from the night before and is sore from sleeping with his feet on the floor. He rubs his calves letting the jazz notes run harried scales through his head.

After propping them up he drifts back down into his unused pillows. He scans the sky noting the deep blue. His head swivels with the slightest tinge of stiffness to the right, where his old potato alarm clock, topped with his likeness, lies silent.

"Oh god it's only 5:29" he groans into his arm which he stretches distressed, across his eyes.

Arnold is an early riser, but even he can't stomach waking at 5:00 am on a Sunday. When did he fall asleep? He'd been working till 2 or 3.

'God that's like only three hours'

The fast paced Jazz makes another crecendo and he grumbles annoyed. He uses the momentum from a rock to make him stand and heads toward his stereo grabbing for his ipod intending to turn the damn thing off. The next song comes on and he hesitates, his thumb barely brushing the white circular pad.

_If you came back, oh if you came back, oh if you came back_

_My love would you still be half rat?_

_Oh when you left, you slid down the drain_

_Got lost in the rain, you'd never be the same_

'Helga' he thinks.

This song always reminds him of her, though he's never been entirely sure why. Maybe he wonders the same thing. If she returned would she still be the bully he knew?

He pauses, his thumb ready to cancel the sound all together, but he doesn't.

_If you came back, my love, would you still be half rat?_

_If you came back, I'd tie a bell around your neck_

_If you came back, I'd always know where you went_

_If you came back, I'd tie a bow around your tail_

_Just like the one that you made for me in jail_

His head bobs tiredly toward his chin and he recalls the apparition of last night, wondering momentarily if it had been a dream.

No his dream had been something else, Helga in her pink dress at the cheese festival, or was it a roof top. He couldn't rmember now.

He lets the song ride out and crosses to the fan that sits pulling in cooler air from outside. He turns it off and removes it so he can lean out the window. Leaning further he struggles to bring back the exact shadow he had seen last night underneath his fire escape. The alleyway is awash with morning blues. Soon things will be tinged with red and pink but right now it could almost be last night. The details are hazy after his short sleep and he finds himself adding to his memory in favor of his theory, or hope rather, that it was in fact her and not just some stranger.

Pulling away from the window in frustration, he rubs his eyes annoyed. This quick pulse feeling he has over yesterdays ghost makes him feel unhinged, he knows it's a ridiculous connection, unlikely, completely based on fantasy, but he can't shake the memory of those blue eyes. What's worse is he knows the reason for why he thinks it's her, or at least why he wants it to be.

He's tired, he's been tired for weeks, months really and Helga had become, for years now, something of a curiosity he let his mind play with. She was his reoccurring daydream at first, and then later he used her like a sort of make believe friend. She was his crutch when times got hard and people were treating him like some invalid. When he was so far down that no one could pull him up, he'd hear her, loud and brash, 'Get over it ya big cry baby' and he'd smile at the memory of her and go on. But now it was different, it was completely different because she had up and somehow managed to even further drill herself into his life, without ever once dropping a line.

Arnold sits on the edge of his bed wondering idly if he should try to fall back asleep. One glance at the quickly brightening sky reminds him how hot it will be soon.

'That's what I get for having windows for a ceiling'

Instead of laying back he half turns and grabs an object off the long shelf that runs the length of his bed. He rests the pink book on his lap absentmindedly stroking the ribbon that comes with each edition as a placeholder.

This was the book she had managed to infect him with, infect him with her, even more so then before. As he sits curling the ribbon around his finger he thinks how silly that thought is, how dramatic. 'Maybe it's something she would say' he ponders letting the silk unfurl around his index once more.

...

He had been completely oblivious, for months without a clue that the book even existed. It wasn't until after all his essays and assignments had been turned in, after the frenzied tests had been taken had he noticed anything odd at all.

Gerald with his insistent 'potential hottie hook up for Arnold' radar was the first to notice.

"Dude, I must be seeing things cuz Brianna Macintire just blew you a kiss." And that wasn't all, he'd slowly begun to notice girls giggling and eyeing him on his way to class.

Arnold was a fairly average looking guy, or at least in his estimation. He'd been told once that his best features were his green eyes and big smile. Lila used to tease him about is funny round nose, but he was never sure if it was in earnest. Gerald was always telling him that it wasn't his looks that turned the ladies off, it was his niceness. ' you're just too nice Arnold! Girl's like a little danger in a man.' But he wasn't like that, didn't know how to or wanted to make girls feel bad in a way that made them interested. Yet somehow in the span of a month he had become Hillwood High's prime heartthrob. At least that's how Gerald put it, with some healthy helbowing and eybrow wiggles sent his way.

"Dude now's your chance to get back in the game man, you've got your pick!" He had said, giving Arnold a little push. Arnold was, as usual, weary when it came to girls, not to mention he already had a date for the prom. " Nah dude, it's just too weird, I mean just yesterday Brianna had no idea I existed and now she's going on about what a romantic figure I am, I mean what does that even mean!"

He'd been in at least one class a year with Brianna and she'd never once even looked in his general direction.

"Anyway I'm taking Catylin to the prom, I told her I would take her months ago" He watched as Gerald made a distasteful face and added "as friends".

Gerald shook his head, "Catylin man, is one messed up girl, not to mention she's obsessed with you. The fact that you agreed to take her means your either one satanic son of a bitch, or one idiotic sap. You know she's just gonna try and get you to sleep with her again."

"Gerald you know it's not like that." Arnold frowned rubbing his forehead, "We talked it out and she knows how I feel, I just feel bad cause-" at that Gerald cut him off "Cause why? Feel bad about what? The fact that you don't like her like she obviously likes you? Because dude, if that's the case you really are a weenie, a super weenie if I may be so bold, especially with this bizarre turn of cute girl events. I'm sorry I ever pushed you to go out with her!" he said raising his hands exasperated, "You were just so... I thought it would do you some good to get laid, which I might add is probably still true, so dump that loony and get on after Brianna! You got the whole female population salivating over you and you're not gonna act on it? Son if I wasn't half married already I'd be on a lovemaking path to the stars."

At that Arnold spit out a laugh clapping his old friend on the back, "well it's a good thing you got Phoebe then huh."

At the thought of Phoebe Arnold paused. The more he thought about it the more he thought Phoebe (being smart as well as a girl) might just know what was going on.

Phoebe however was almost impossible to find. Since having only upper level classes, she was still completely under the realm of academia. Not even Gerald could locate her. By the time Arnold bumped into her, scattering a tower of books she had been holding, things had gotten worse. Guys in his grade and even younger had begun taunting him with things like, "there goes Roland the hunkiest boy in preschool" or,

"Roland oh Roland I'll wear my pink bow for you FOREVER"

Nerdy shy girls began shadowing him only to let him know that he should have taken "Barb Pagaik" in is arms and told "Barb" he loved her and how "Barb" was so much better than "Alli" and more people and things he had absolutely no idea about. The catcalls made no sense to him and in frustration he began acting out of character, even once bumping a kid against a locker to shut him up. It was like some crazy scheme to drive him insane, like he was a character in someone else's idea of a story, which he finally realized, he was.

...

Arnold lazily looks down at the book on his lap and rubs his thumb further into the ribbon. The pink she chose for the book isn't a bright one, it doesn't look cheery or bubblegum cute the way he remembers her pink dresses and bow. It's as if it were chosen to look faded.

The picture on the cover isn't cheery either, far from it; instead it makes him feel lonely, which he supposes is the point.

A young girl with long blond hair stands with her back to the camera her shoulders slightly hunched. A pink bow, same as the ribbon in his hands, sits on top her head. Sometimes he wonders if she took the photo, or maybe even that it's a photo of her, but he knows it's probably not. The girl's hair isn't even in pigtails, and she's obviously young. He wants it to be her though, there is no photo of her on the inside cover. The only thing that ties the book to her at all is her name and the brief authors description on the inside jacket.

_Helga G. Pataki is a Highschool student at East Boston High. She enjoys pork rinds and lemons and never takes no for an answer. This is her first Published Novel._

And then the dedication. The strangest one he's ever seen.

_Dedicated to myself, for that's all there's ever been._

There is a thank you page filled with names he doesn't know. He's not thanked, (not that he was expecting to be) and neither one of her parents or her sister are mentioned. He hopes that it was written before Miriam got in touch with her because he knows it would hurt her feelings.

It isn't a very big book, probably just over 300 pages, but he still hasn't read it. He just can't bring himself to make it past the first page. He is almost sure that everyone in Hillwood has read it by now. By the time school had ended that seemed to be the case.

...

Pheobe wasn't able to help him. She'd been layered with books when they ran into each other in the hall. While helping her back up he had managed, embarrassed as he was, to ask if she knew what was going on. He remembers she blinked rather rapidly as if being snapped out of an educational fog.

"Pardon me Arnold, but I've been pretty busy executing the final stages of my highschool career." She waved sarcastically while straightening her book pile. "Did you say people were calling you Roland? Well that is odd, particularly because it's an anagram..." She seemed to drift off then taking a wild glance around her as three girls passed by making kissy faces at Arnold and grasping identical books to their chests. "Oh my god she didn't" She managed to say, her face paralyzed between shock and a peculiar grin, before racing off down the corridor leaving Arnold once again in the dark.

In the end he had to hear it from Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd.

"Oh. My. God. Arnold don't tell me you don't know!"

Like most pieces of gossip and rumor Rhonda could either be found at the center, or near the mill, where such things were created. In this way she had not changed much since their more innocent grade school days. She was still concerned as ever with being the most popular, most fashionable, and most sought after girl in school. But not all things were the same. The fact that they were even in the same school could attest to that.

She had all but become a memory to the old gang after leaving them behind for a fancy private academy in 6th grade. It wasn't until their sophomore year of high school that they came into contact again. Apparently her father had lost half their fortune in the financial collapse and could no longer afford the price of private education. Her highness had been knocked down a peg but was still relatively wealthy in comparison to most kids, and she quickly made a place for herself at the top of the social food chain. Ruling all with a manicured fist. But, alas there were no more trips to "Aspen" or white fur coats to sport, and instead of the mansion Arnold remembers her growing up in she was now "slumming it" in a brownstone. How owning a full brownstone (without a multitude of boarders in it) was "slumming" Arnold would never know, but that is not the question he posed to her after their 5th period English class.

"Oh Arnold you really should pick up a book sometime" she remarked haughtily as her pretty cronies laughed egging her on, " but since we're old friends and all I'll just give you the cliff notes" and with that she pulled out a book from her bag and handed it to him.

" It seems our little Helga surprised us all, I mean I always knew she had a big crush on you, who didn't, except you of course my dear little 'football head.'" his eyes widened both at the old nickname and Rhonda's admission. He stared at the name written on the spine of the book aghast. " She changed everyone's names but I figured it out pretty quick, since the story was just, oh so familiar. But who knew she'd write a summer blockbuster novella about it!"

When he moved flabbergasted to hand the book back to her she stopped him, "keep it, I've already read it." She lifted her chin thoughtfully and for a moment, as was usual with Rhonda, her bitchy veneer drifted away momentarily to reveal her contemplative skeleton within, "it's actually really good, you should read it Arnold, it's obviously a fiction, I mean my characters completely off base but... there are some truths in there and at least you'll know why now."

" Why what" he had asked dumbly as she turned to go, her cronies trailing after her,

"Why she bullied you silly," she said lifting the back of her hand in goodbye.

...

That evening going home he realized the book was everywhere, he saw girls reading it on the bus, women flipping through it in stores and finally as he passed by the book emporium, there it was in the window display, front and center.

_The Bully's Pink Ribbon_ by Helga G. Pataki.

Now as Arnold sits on his bed drunken with exhaustion he can't believe it took him so long to realize it was there all around him. And yet it was just a book, just a bunch of pages with words on them that had made him feel excruciatingly uncomfortable and strangely unreal.

He flips passed the few blank pages and dedication and stops on the prolog, the only page he's managed to read. His eyes skim over it for the millionth time.

_When your parents, or your elders, or any of those old folks who think they know best because they have claimed more years_

_say, "You're too young to love." That's not what they mean to say,_

_or at least that's not what they should say._

_Those who say, " you are too young to love" mean to say, " you shouldn't love so young"_

_This is what they should say._

_I fell in love at the age of 3. Real and complicated it became my life's devotion._

_It's not that I was too young to comprehend it; it was that I was too young to endure._

_Love's first heartbreak is the hardest, its affect of dissolution is great and the young still full of wonder fall farthest._

_The world is not kind to the small things and, make no mistake, neither is Love._

Arnold slams the book shut and places it behind him. He can't read past that page, he just can't. The opening note demonizes him enough. It's sole purpose made to make him feel, somehow, inadvertently through carelessness he had "disillusioned" her. Made her give up on...made her give up...

The truth is Rhonda was wrong, he had known. Even now though, he likes to tell himself he hadn't. That he hadn't been aware of her tortured gazes, the way she focused all her energy on him, the poems read in class by Mr. Simmons because the author was to remain anonymous.

Of course he'd heard those crazy monologues of hers, who hadn't? She was amazingly obvious! Waiting ony brief moments after he'd walked off before ranting in antiquated language her love for him. But he had always tried to play it off as if it was just another antic, something that was made to torment. Just another tactic to get his attention so she could harrass him. Just like the spitballs. He'd done it so often that he almost believed it. And she was erratically cruel enough to convince him that he was mad for thinking otherwise.

But what could he have done? They were young and everyone hated her. She was incredibly difficult and forced everyone to deal with it. He didn't want difficult he had wanted simple, and picturesque, and easy and Helga was the exact opposite. There was always this burning anger and frustration that would explode into helpless confusion whenever they got close. Now it wasn't difficult to see why.

They were connected.

She came from a place that was just as lonely as his. They were missing something. It wasn't the same but he recognized it.

What made him hate her, or what made him so against her, was that he struggled against his tragedy every day and she didn't. She embodied it, forced it into people's faces, his face. It made him pity her, which hurt him, because it meant he had to pity himself.

That's why he was so forthright and optimistic, he had to be, or else he'd succumb to the probable reality that his parents were dead and never coming home.

She singly handedly reminded him, every day, with her loud complaints and slurs against her parents that most times you don't get what you want, that people aren't who they're supposed to be, and most of all, bad things happen to good people.

And she would know, because she was a good person. He had known that too, which made it all the more infuriating. She made it impossible to give up on her, because he knew, she had shown him, with moments so small no one else would have noticed. Things that were imbedded, things spoken in secret codes only they knew. It was all in his half lidded glances. She would tell him she was sad through her number of spitballs. A tango or a fight would reveal his every deep thought and desire.

'I want to throw you in a pool right now Helga and jump in after you.' It was just the words that were never said. They did it all the time.

There was that one week where she stopped harassing him. No spit balls, no water fountain sports, no shoves or catcalls with meaning imbedded in. His relief lasted all of three minutes of their first period class, because of course who isn't overjoyed when they're bully looses interested? Him that's who. After lunch he was so on edge that Gerald had to slap talk him back to reality. "A guy's got to be a little sick in the head to like being bullied'" Gerald had said. Which was true, there was definitely something wrong with him because he felt like a whole part of him had short-circuited. He couldn't help feel strange; it was as if something wasn't being expressed.

This is why he had hated her, or told himself he did. He could never express the strange connection he had with Helga Pataki, which was why he chose to bury it. Even after the FTI incident, after her declaration, the whole blow up he couldn't think about it. He couldn't really bring himself to think about what she really had meant to him.

Arnold gives a melancholic shake of his head before standing.

The worst thing was he knew give or take three year he would've realized how special she was.

'It's funny', he thinks as he stretches and grabs a dirty shirt from the hamper, 'That I know what happens in the book without ever having read it'.

He knows the ending, the real ending and the fake one. He's heard from Gerald who had heard from Phoebe that the ending was some sort of dramatic face off where he inevitably told her that he was sorry but he didn't like her, and instead picked Alli, which now made sense as the obvious anagram for lila, and Barb Helga's character (the only one that wasn't close to an original name) was left standing in the rain. But that's not how it had happened. In fact Helga's departure, while dramatic, carried none of those events.

* * *

><p><em>There are so many things that I don't understand<br>There's a world within me that I cannot explain  
>Many rooms to explore, but the doors look the same<br>I am lost I can't even remember my name_

_I've been, for sometime, looking for someone  
>Fighting to know them<br>Please tell me who I am_

_Where are the thoughts to try to keep?  
>Then I wonder why<em>

_ -Within, Daft Punk_

It was the summer before middle school and a whole year after the FTI incident. They're shaky friendship had continued but with a different tone. Sometimes Helga was nicer, and sometimes he let on that he knew why, but mostly they spent their time tiptoeing, if not completely ignoring, the elephant that followed them. Helga for her part managed to be less of a bully but of course failed a lot of the time. Still there had been no dramatics between them, maybe once or twice a long stare, or a conversation with double meaning but nothing like she described and for that he's glad. He's glad because he knows that if she had confronted him then it probably would have gone like she had written. He was still stupidly daydreaming about Lila and how "lovely" she was, so it makes sense that he doesn't really remember what she was like right before her departure. All he really recalls is some family issues, but that had always been Helga's "problem" one in which he could never get her to talk honestly about.

Arnold remembers that day vividly since it was the first storm of what was a particularly dry summer. It was the kind of storm you could hear from a mile off, like a wounded lion charging. It was the kind of storm that takes over a city, leaving patches of sun to push through black clouds. It had been beautiful, almost as if Helga had managed to imbed her own essence into that day. Helga and the rain, it's how he's always remembered her after all these years.

It was serendipitous the way it happened. He had just opened the door to let out the cats and dogs when he found her standing there. Her fist had been raised and she was drenched. Her hair was down, which caught him off guard. It always had a way of softening her features and making his stomach stitch though at the time he didn't know why.

The animals, as per usual, rushed the entryway knocking Helga as they went out. With his lighting quick reflexes Arnold insticively reached out and grabbed a hold of her hand and waist, bringing her close to him so she wouldn't fall.

For a brief moment that seemed to stretch itself into infinity he just held her. He'd grown a few inches since they'd last been so close and he was surprised when they almost came nose to nose.

He remembers how just a piece of sunray broke through lighting up her hair and blue eyes making them shine brilliantly. He stared like an epiphany had appeared blowing up his insides. She just seemed so real. Her face was so soft and sad and real. The farce that was Helga was gone and what was left was someone else entirely. Someone he had always known. But then the sun disappeared and Big Bob's car honked breaking them and the spell apart.

" Olga! Cut the crap and say goodbye to your little friend already. We got traffic to beat!"

A white flash of lighting hit as he stood dumbfounded, not comprehending the boxes and the moving van, just feeling her turn away from him, the rain soaking his hair and shirt, the tips of her fingers still in his hand. She hadn't told him she was moving away.

"Gimmie a goddamn second Bob, CRIMINY!"

She turned back to him, her eyes red and her hair wild. She quickly dropped his hand to push back her heavy brow and for a moment she was the old Helga again. Determined and troubled she let out a shaky breath before pushed something wet and soft into his hands.

"I'm leaving" she stated rather simply staring at his shoes, "and I probably..." her head came further forward her long bangs shielding her face as a hand came and entered it's canopy, wiping away something, rain, tears, he wasn't sure.

"and I probably won't be coming back." she said loudly, whipping her head back up to stare accusingly at him, as if he'd done something wrong. But he supposes now, he had, he had done nothing.

Her voice faltered then and it was hard to hear her over the thunder and rain.

" I thought maybe you would want, ya know, something to remember me by, so..."

He'd been too stunned by the turn of events, the bloom of emotion he'd just felt, her news of leaving, the cats and dogs that were falling and running all around them, to look down into his open hands at the gift she'd just given him.

" It's your ribbon?" He asked completely at a loss.

She quietly nodded her head, looking up at him embarrassed and broken through her blond wet bangs.

"I can't, I can't take this Helga it's, it's..." It was wrong, her not having her ribbon, the big pink bow he was so used to. It felt wrong, how would he imagine her wherever she was going, without it? It was her defining characteristic. While her unibrow might have been to others, it was the pink bow he always saw, and he wanted her to keep it, needed her to so he could keep on imagining her safe and happy somewhere. Without it he couldn't really picture her, and he all of a sudden really wanted to.

"No, I want you to keep it, hell, you can throw it in the trashcan after I'm gone but… yeah" She said pushing back his hands.

"No- Nno I wouldn't do that Helga!" He stuttered clutching it towards him in reaction to the idea.

They stood there awkwardly, Helga rocking from foot to foot, him flexing his fist around the ribbon. He was afraid all of a sudden. Afraid she was going to say something, finally ask him something he couldn't answer, so he opened his mouth first.

"Why Helga?" and it was all there in that question, he was sure she understood.

" I-"

_Beeeeeep, _Bob's horn blared, cutting her off, and this time Helga's scream was livid. She turned stomping down the steps of the boarding house leaning forward in her rage, shaking a clenched fist.

" I SAID WAIT!" Her face was pink and flushed when she turned back around to face him and it took her three deep breaths to calm herself.

When she did answer him though her voice was dead calm.

"Because you told me you liked it" she laughed sarcastically offering up her palms and walking up the three flights to face him again. It looked like tears were pooling out of her eyes, but it was hard to tell. He was thoroughly soaked and shivering, he was thoroughly shocked and he didn't understand.

"What?" he breathed feeling faint all of a sudden.

Years later, after the book had come out Phoebe had read him the first chapter, and it wasn't until then did he understand those parting words. He'd stopped Phoebe after realizing feeling an inexplicable weight of guilt wash over him. He didn't remember that day, or her pink outfit. He couldn't remember that day that was so important to her.

She hugged him then with a bone crushing strength he would come to miss. He heard her swallow a sob and then she was off of him backing down the stairwell a shit eating grin plastered over her face.

" I told you already football head!" she said laughing a hysterical note to her cackle, and then quieter, really looking at him this time " you know why."

She turned then and ran down to her father's van yanking open the door with fury.

He remembers hearing Bob complaints, but that's not what he was really paying attention to. His stomach was in a fit of knots and he was frozen on his stoop watching her leave. He didn't even know which way was up and all he could do was watch the scene unfold in front of him, her lifting her foot to jump into the car, the sun and rain making rolling patchwork over the street, her leaving.

She turned in that last moment, the flurry of sunspots breaking through, turning her golden and then gray, golden and gray. He watched as her face gave way to heartbreak and then resolution, and then she was running to him and away from the car, the door she was about to enter still wide open. He could hear her father cursing, hitting the horn multiple times, but it might as well have been thunder, a manhole cover popping up, maybe even his heart. All he knew was she was going to kiss him again and there was nothing he could do to stop her. She was a force of nature, a whirlwind, and he couldn't get away, it was inevitable.

That's how he had felt as her lips came crashing down on his, their teeth clicking and her tongue salty with tears brushing against his petrified lips.

That was the kiss he would recall for years to come. He'd update it and change it to suit his fancy but it was always her and the way she had of holding his face in her hands, the wild abandon that she let show only when kissing him.

"I'll love you forever my love, that's why" She had whispered dramatically, almost making him laugh in disbelief.

And then she was gone. That was it. That's how it had really happened. The real version just as literarily worthy as the fictional one, or at least in his memory, it was.

He'd ended up giving the ribbon to Zada that first Christmas morning.

When he had woken, her small body curled into his own he realized it was Christmas day and he had nothing to give her. The ribbon was the first thing that caught his eye as he scanned the room for possibilities. It had been hanging from his bookshelf tucked into her other pink book, the one he'd found on the bus. It was the only girly thing he could think to give.

She had loved it of course, maybe just for the simple fact that it was a gift. He remembers explaining to her how important it was that she didn't lose it. He's sure that either way she wouldn't have, it was as precious to her as it was to him, but he explained why anyway. " I was given this by someone who loved me so don't lose it" he had said. She ended up wearing it every day, in a big bow just like Helga had, sans the two pigtails. It suited her in that strange way it did Helga, a wild creature with wild hair but touched with a certain fragility.

...

A deep rumble emits from Arnold's midsection and he lets out a small chuckle patting his stomach.

"All this reminiscing is making me hungry," he says to himself standing and shutting off his stereo.

The house is quite as Arnold travels lazily down the attic stairs. The only sound other than his soft footfall is the muffled bedsprings as bodies shift under lightweight covers. Even the stray critters his grandma keeps seem to be asleep.

' I should wake up at 5:00am every Sunday' Arnold thinks while suppressing a yawn.

Even Mr. Mthembu, (Ms. Mthembu's brother who had immigrated with her from South Africa) was not up yet, and he usually was out by 4:30 with his donut cart to catch the early bird rush. Most mornings, in Arnold's half sleep, he can hear the man whistling in the shower. He would have found it annoying if he weren't so good.

'But it's quite now' he thinks smiling in delight at the prospect of having one morning all to himself. He wouldn't be hassled about a leaky pipe or getting his grandma to take her meds, or shielding Zada from another one of his mother's "moments".

'This is going to be nice' he thinks.

Downstairs the air is cooler and goosebumps rise quickly as he crosses the tiled kitchen floor to grab a bowl and some cereal from the cabinets.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman sitting at the table, her back turned to him. For a moment his heart beat picks up causing a few stray cheerios to spill from his Bowl.

"Jesus Christ Mom!" He breaths, his voice betraying a shade of agitation he usually tries to hide from her.

He can tell she's been sitting here for a while. It's what she did now; it had become her thing. The other boarders had complained about her creepy meditations but there was little he could do. It was better than the two months she spent holed up in her room barely coming out to eat or use the bathroom. All he could say to them in her defense was that she was going through some things. What, he couldn't say, because she had yet to tell him.

He sighs and sets his bowl down on the table to grab the broom.

As he sweeps he reminds himself that it _has_ gotten better. After Miriam dragged her from her deathbed and into the tub where she screamed for nearly two hours she seemed to snap out of most of it. Arnold had been against the idea in the beginning but it seemed to do the trick. She started to come down for family meals and even began helping out around the house.

It didn't completely transform her however and Arnold still finds himself wanting to violently shake her out of the comatose state he finds her in too often. It wasn't fair. She wasn't being fair to him or Zada.

'For Zada at least' He thinks putting down the broom and grabbing the milk from the fridge.

It was just, well it was hard, it was hard just being around her. While she was at least courteous to him she was completely vicious to his younger sister and he spent most of his time trying not to do something completely rash, like scream at her. As much as he wanted, and as many times as he almost has, she's so completely fragile that he's afraid of doing anything more than hint at her unpleasant behavior, and even that gets him only tears.

It was like her favorite pass time. All she did was cry and cry. When he was too nice she cried, when he prompted her to go outside she cried, and god for bid he ask her for the umpteenth time to explain just WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED she cried.

At this point he was happy to stay out of her way, which was why as he sat down he chose to sit at the head of the table and as far from her as possible. He was afraid of her, all the time, he just couldn't take her crying any more, it had become too much. At the pit of his soul something ached but he'd become used to it.

Arnold didn't even have the quite supportive help of Miriam because Stella had fired her.

He hadn't seen it go down but had guessed from Miriam's parting words that it had been over Zada. He's sure his mother was being excessively cruel to her youngest child again and Miriam had tried, as she usually did, to intervene.

He was glad Miriam tried for Zada and his sake but it was also horrifyingly embarrassing that another woman had to protect Zada from her own mother. For his own part he tried to curb her fury as much as possible, but as his mother's strength came back so did a kind of madness. She just couldn't stand her daughter. He'd stopped her on multiple accounts about to, or already spanking the little girl viciously. Whenever she was reprimanded and asked why she would collapse into a sobbing pool unable to answer any questions.

When he had come downstairs one rainy day in April to see what all the screaming was about, Miriam was already halfway out the door clutching her ugly parka to her breast and yelling something like, "FINE, you know what I QUIT, because I can't STAND to see how you treat your family, your a- your just a - a- BAD PERSON"

Eloquent as usual she made a dash for the door tripping up on the rug as she went.

"Hey, Hey what's going on" He had said playing up his long forgotten mediator voice.

She'd already made it halfway out the door and had turned backing out to tell him, "It's no good Arnold I just can't, I can't work here anymore you'll just have to get along without me." He could see she had tears in her eyes and he himself couldn't really quite grasp what had just gone down. He watched as she gave a large huff of a breath punching her arms through her coat.

" I just, listen... I just can't watch her treat..." She groaned removing her glasses and rubbing at her eyes.

" Take care of her okay, your mother she'll regret it one day." and then in almost a whisper, "I do, I regret it, and she's just a little girl just like my Helga was and it's not right. But you'll be there at least, for her right? Helga didn't have that, a big brother, so at least there's that." and then she put her glasses back on and said, " Bye dear I'm sure I'll see you around." and with that she gave him a bone crushing hug that reminded him of another parting, and then she was gone.

He saw her every once and a while and it was pleasant but she'd never been back over to the house and Arnold had been left to manage things without her. And It had been hard without her, the boarders helped out as much as they could but his grandmother needed a caretaker and his mother needed a psychiatrist and he didn't know how to afford either. So yeah, the last 3 months has been hard but it was the summer now and his mother had calmed slightly, she'd been going outside and talking about plans, she was trying.

"Arnold?"

"Hm?" He says while chewing his cereal and staring into his bowl.

"I got a job yesterday"

"What!" His spoon clatters loudly against the blue ceramic.

"what, why, what for, I mean uh, that's good I guess?" he questiones flabbergasted.

Stella chuckles without really smiling," I thought you'd be more pleased since you're always telling me to get out of my slump" She pauses before adding, "if you must know I got it for you" She smiles for real then and it sickens him. She is pandering to him, trying to get into his good graces, be a good mother to him. It hurt that she couldn't do it for Zada.

"I'll be getting paid very well so I wanted to do something for you." She breathes in smiling wider pleased with herself. " I want you to call the financial office at Columbia tomorrow and have them call me, I don't want you having to worry about loans. Also I thought you might like to rent a place during school so you can get that dorm living experience. It's cheaper and probably better than the university housing, and you could room with Gerald or one of your other friends. It also might be a good idea since I heard they try to save those rooms for out of state freshmen."

" I didn't sign up for housing mom" he says a little dazed.

He had been planning to live here. Live here and do the cooking and rent collecting and stress inducing tasks he did every day. He had to be here to make sure that-

"Arnold" she says, somehow reaching across the large gap between them and squeezing his arm.

The touch is brief but electric propelling them first away and then towards each other.

" I know I've been…" She hesitates stroking the polished wood of her fake hand. " I haven't been all there lately but I want you to know you can count on me. I can handle things here without you. You should be focusing on getting your degree and becoming a famous architect, not here fixing the kitchen sink. You don't have to worry so much, Son. "

It's tacked on at the end that word, and all he can do is nod, not knowing how to react either way. He wants to believe her more than anything. He wants to be free of responsibility and the horrible tasking weight of the last 4 years. Maybe he can give her the benefit of the doubt, she had improved, that was true, but was it enough not to worry? He wasn't so sure.

"What's the job?" he finally asks shifting the conversation away from that topic.

" Pharmaceuticals" she says quickly. Her eyebrow twitches and he can tell she's ashamed but doesn't say anything.

" It's a large company whose been interested in my work prior to my" and there she stops, "I'll be creating serotonin prohibitors and such," she says with the slightest tinge of distaste.

"Oh cool" he manages to say while standing and placing his bowl in the sink to wash and dry.

A surprisingly strong hand drops onto his shoulder and gives it a squeeze. She had stood up without him realizing it and was now leaning into him from behind.

" Think about what I've said okay, I really want you to have a good time, you deserve it. I'm going to rest for a few hours." She then leaves him and he is finally alone. His peaceful morning completely ruined.


	9. The Foundation

**Don't own anything... Television Man by The Talking Heads**

* * *

><p><strong>The Foundation IX:<strong>

She is running late.

With tweezers in one hand and a brush in the other Helga simultaneously tames her golden locks and black eyebrows.

"fuck" she whispers to herself as the last obnoxiously stubborn hair causes her eyes to water.

' I should just dye them blond already' she thinks, while quickly braiding her thick waves into a messy tail and flipping it over her shoulder. She smiles at the absurdity of the thought. While she may take pains to keep from looking like Frida Kahlo she's a little too lazy to maintain something as vain as eyebrow dying.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck" she says while quickly tying her mother pink terrycloth robe tighter to her body and dashing into her old bedroom.

She's been in town for over a week and in that time has managed to do little but change her bed sheets to something other than fuchsia and open her suitcase.

It is her suitcase that she tears through now in order to find something suitable.

Today she will be on network television and would like to at least look like herself rather than some stylist's version of a teen author.

"Come on where's that top," she grumbles ripping viciously through pants and a few dresses.

"Oh thank god," she says, finally pulling out a shear gray and blue beaded tank top.

Five minutes and fifty-three seconds later she's tying the laces of her black and white vintage spectators and contemplating if she should leave her hair in the messy braid she's done when her phone buzzes.

Crossing to her massive jewelry box and donning a silver cuff and thick black African bracelets she flips open her phone.

'Waiting…' reads the text, causing another curse to drop from her frowning mouth.

She has seen no one in the week she's been here. 'Except him' she thinks grabbing her makeup bag angrily. She would've called up Phoebe immediately if her publicist (upon finding that she'd moved to the big apple) hadn't insisted on making her attend every literary party on the high society's social calendar that week.

Instead of silly slumber parties with her old best girl she had found herself in the most swank of circumstances suffering through conversations with people twice her age that both hit on her and passed out martinis without the slightest concern for the law. The drinks she had enjoyed, the dirty old men, she had not.

It had been an exhausting week but this was supposedly the last of it. Or at least for a while her publicist promised. No more radio shows no more book signings and no more boring cocktail parties.

The only reason she'd agreed to do the Regis and Kelly show was her annoyingly good business sense (Yes, fine she did have to market her book) and that she got to bring Phoebe along (for moral support).

But now she was running late and Phoebe was waiting for her next to the subway, probably a little anxious to get going.

'On my way out right now,' She texted back. She then grabbed her bag and rushed down the stairs giving her mom a wave as she well wished her out the door.

"Ohaiyogozaimasu Helga!" The slight but sturdy frame of Phoebe Heyerdahl flew into Helga squeezing her within an inch of her life.

"Hey Phoebes missed you too but don't you think it's a little early for Japanese and sumo wrestling?"

" Actually learning Japanese, especially in the morning, has proven to help the brain process tasks quicker and keep synapses at ready fire as one grows older." Her old friend remarked in her usual chipper educated manner.

"Yeah, yeah smarty pants lets get a move on before my creepily psychic publicist calls and rails me for being late, before being late." Helga sarcastically quips, throwing an arm across phoebe's shoulder

"Moving!"

Some things don't change and some things do.

Helga throws a causal glance at Phoebe as she disentangles herself from underneath her arm to trot down the dirty subway steps. She watches her threadbare but cute flower skirt flare at the bottom as she follows her down into the hot subway.

Phoebe had been one of those girls that out of nowhere became a woman. She sprouted quickly and with little fanfare capping in at 5'2" and a half. She was small but long in the way that her arms and legs were gracefully proportioned to the rest of her.

Helga had been floored when around 14 she showed for her annual visit surprisingly voluptuous. Once Helga got over the shock, she remembered what Phoebe's mother looked liked, (big boobed) but there were times when she found herself jealous of Phoebe's quite classic beauty. She always looked effortless.

Even her tone of voice and manners had become more relaxed with age. No longer did she feel the need to display her genius with perfect enunciation and grammatical precision. She still had a habit of correcting people's oversights but on the whole she seemed more likely to let others deal with their own incompetence, which to Helga only proved her greater intelligence.

She was still Phoebe though, her favorite color still blue, her favorite sport still fencing, still a genius, she was just older and completely her own woman. She had grown up well away from Helga's shadow.

"I like your haircut by the way" Helga says into her bag as she searches for a Metro card.

She'd seen Phoebe's new doo online in some pictures she'd sent in an email attachment. They kept in touch through Aim as well but Phoebe had a tendency to schedule moments and Helga wasn't much for keeping time. In any case they both enjoyed the catharsis of writing out their day and thoughts without interruption in emails.

"Yeah? I know you already said so but I'm still not so sure. Gerald's having a fit. I guess it'll just take some getting used to. At least it's cooler." She says running her small hand through the short cropped black locks of her sheared head.

"Ugh whatever he'll get over it." Helga retorted rolling her eyes, "Just show him a picture of his head back in Elementary." Phoebe giggles shrugging her shoulders in agreement.

"All men freak out when women cut their hair. It's their Neanderthals instincts they can't help it. Something about long hair signifying fertility and whatnot" Helga remarks swiping and walking through the turnstile.

"Oh I knew he would just for that reason."

"Well there ya go. You did it for yourself and not him anyway, and I think it looks pre-tty boss" She smiles, genuine, because she did think it was pretty cool and completely unlike Phoebe to do something so drastic and spur of the moment.

The style suited her. It wasn't exactly a buzz cut but was chopped across her head in a mix of short jagged layers that culminated into a messy boy's style hairdo. It looked good even while it was jarring after years of long hair. The short little wisps and boyish bangs framing her face made her look at once grownup and pixyish depending on Phoebe's decision to wear glasses or contacts.

Today she was a pixie.

Phoebe giggled at the complement and Helga's use of "boss" while leaning to check if their train was coming.

Helga knew without looking by the push of hot air that it was.

They maneuvered their way onto the crowded train thankful for the air conditioning even while being pushed against summer sweaty strangers.

Helga reached out and found some space on the poll while Phoebe held onto her when jostled too abruptly.

By the third stop Phoebe managed to grab two seats beneath a subway map and while Helga leaned into her knees Phoebe charted their course.

"Six more stops," she says turning in her seat, "Oh this is so exciting Helga! I can't believe you're going to be on TV, or well I guess I can believe it but still!" She says, nudging Helga off of her elbows and out of her stupor.

"Huh, uh yeah exciting" her voice barely straying from it's monotone.

She leans back her head bumping against the subway wall, "To tell you the truth Phoebes I have absolutely no interest in being on TV. " She says stretching her long body toward the overhead bar. "But Helga!" –

She quickly interrupts gesturing angrily, "They're just gonna try and market me as some over sexed dumb teen author and criminy, I'm going to let them! Fucking publicity," She grumbles falling back onto her knees.

"Hopefully we'll be late enough so that they'll just throw me on stage as I am, because god help them if they try caking me up with all that eye shadow and foundation gunk" Helga sticks out her tongue in disgust at the mere thought.

"Well, I suppose I can see your point Helga. The media does tend to have its own agenda, but then again I thought that was half the fun. Stylists, makeup artists and the rest making you into this glittery movie star you, it sounds almost like a day at the spa." Phoebe says smiling dreamily.

"Well I'll make ya a deal Phoebe ol' girl you can have the image therapy and I'll just do the talk show"

"Oh do you think they would" Phoebe's eyes light up as she holds herself against inertia as they come to another stop.

"Sure why not"

The train picks up again but their conversation does not. At first Helga is fine with the rumble of mettle hurtling through space filling the void where their voices once were but soon awkwardness settles over her.

The feeling annoys her.

She was worried this might happen, and yet thought she was above it having an affect on her. But here she was struggling to find something to say to quell the notion that her friend, her once best friend, was bored with her.

Her stomach does a roll. She glares distractedly at the animated couple standing above them. She lets out a huff as one of them is jostled into her personal space.

She grits her teeth, her thoughts turning ever darker.

It seemed everything had been said and yet they'd barely gotten to their destination. She already knew all the big events, even the smaller less cumbersome feelings of the girl sitting next to her. It was just that they'd exhausted everything through the little chats online or on the phone. They were like characters in a book to each other. She'd read Phoebe's life from cover to cover for the past 10 years. There was little left to divulge. She was sure it was the same for her as well.

Phoebe knew about her breakup with Coulee. How he'd cried and begged her to stay. Even the most recent debacle, how he had given chase to the slow to start locomotive, screaming at her through the window as she watched for the end of the platform to come into view.

She already knew that Gerald and her had a big fight over her hair, how of course they quickly mellowed out because their relationship was disgustingly strong as a body builder's bicep.

They knew where they each were going to school, what Helga was majoring in, that Phoebe, because of her enormous brains, had no idea what she wanted to do so was taking courses in everything.

They'd run out of topics of interest and the only thing Helga could think to say was she'd happened to fall into an old habit and saw someone she didn't really want to see. But she couldn't bring herself to. For multiple reasons, most of which, she hid from herself.

Mostly, or the part she admitted, was that she was uncomfortable with peoples preconceived notions.

It was the books fault. Even those who didn't know about its origins pegged her as some broken pine tree. It was infuriating.

Even Phoebe, who knew she was over him made her feel sometimes, especially after the book had come out, like she thought something different. It was for that reason she had kept the announcement of its publication from her. She didn't want to add to her suspicions. She left Ice Cream off the table.

Her knee starts to jiggle and she looks side-to-side, thoroughly agitated.

Her shoulder's then slump and she shakes her head vigorously almost laughing at her overreaction. 'I'm such a basket case' she thinks.

Her leg stops bouncing and she takes a quick look at Phoebe who is absentmindedly biting a hangnail. She looks relaxed and happy sitting quietly destroying her finger.

Helga lets out a long sigh that's muffled by the ding of another stop. 'Maybe it's just me' she thinks feeling stupid.

Her thoughts roll back to when they were young. How it used to be. Their moments of pure easiness, " We were really great together" she thinks.

When they were young they used to spend hours together not uttering a word. Bus rides, walks home from school, sleepovers where they'd just enjoy each other's company. She can remember so vividly how they used to hang out after school in her room, her scribbling furiously in a stupid pink book, and Phoebe doing her homework, or looking through some thick encyclopedia. How hours would go by with neither one of them speaking. Sometimes a thought might come to mind that would be shared, but most of the time not even then. They had been that comfortable, and she misses that, she misses the way they used to be.

She is about to give in and say something completely asinine an idiotic, just to say something, when Phoebe jumps in her seat and turns to her excitedly.

"Oh my god I almost forgot!" Phoebe's eyes are all a glitter and Helga immediately feels bad for feeling awkward in the first place.

" It's Rhonda's annual summer bash tonight and when I said you were in town she flipped and-" Helga was already groaning, the last person she wanted to see was Rhonda Wellington-Loyd.

"-oh but Helga I promised that you'd come, she was going on and on about how you'd be the guest of honor, and you haven't seen her in years. She's not as bad… well she's different and everyone else will be there!"

"Whose everyone" her face flushes hotter but she puts it off to the doors opening to a particularly muggy station.

"Well everyone from before you left, who haven't left or…" She didn't have to finish. When Sheena found out she had terminal cancer at 15 it was a blow but it had been so long in seeing her that the ache was dulled.

Patty's suicide had been worse and luckily Harold had moved away so she wouldn't have him there to lay a fist into. Though, she supposes now, the guilt was what made him leave in the first place.

Young boys can be so cruel and girls foolishly shortsighted.

"Please Helga, pleeeaaseee." Phoebe leans into her face pleading with her wide almond eyes. Helga couldn't help the anxious tug that pulled at her lower intestines. She frowns annoyed at the feeling and in retaliation finally concedes lightly slapping Phoebe back into her seat.

"Fine, but you owe me. I'm dying for a relaxing, sleepover filled with shitty movies and junk food, no art house foreign films Phoebes."

"Done and done! Oh thank you thank you!" She gushes once again crowding Helga with another surprisingly strong hug.

"Quit it Phoebes, too hot." She says her voice hard but a soft smile pulling at her lips.

"Quitting!"

They chat for a while longer and then are silent, and this time it does not bother Helga at all.

* * *

><p>"Grandma please, we've been over this. The doctor says it's important that you take these." He says, a note of exasperation and finality pitching his deep voice an octave higher.<p>

"I will do no such thing soldier! Not while the enemy's a foot. You'll have to take the leg and put me back on the front line. I'll get those gray back scum one foot or no foot!"

Arnold sighs rubbing his forehead. He is tired. His late night and early morning rise coupled with his mother's unsettling pep talk has left him unprepared for the usual agonizing ritual of getting his grandmother to take her meds. With less than three hours of sleep he's a little less willing to play nurse to Gertie's civil war nonsense.

Once again his life is a bowl of laughs.

In the background he can hear Zada in the kitchen fixing a sandwich, which he'd asked her to do in hopes of getting Gertie to take the pills with her lunch. Unfortunately he is almost sure from the clattering noises behind him that she is instead making a mess. His eyebrow twitches and he forcefully thrusts the three blue and two white pills into the woman's wrinkled hand. He then gently, but with determination, pushes her into the lazy boy in front of the T.V.

Grabbing the remote he wordlessly and without looking jabs the on button letting a long breathe out through his nose.

He then crouches; his hands on each armrest to both trap her there and support his weight.

He stares silently into the cloudy eyes of the woman who raised him.

"Grandma" he says firm but soft, "you have to take these" he says pointing to her hand. "Their good for you. They're so we can spend more time together." His forehead smoothes out and he gently pats the hand not holding her pills.

"Here" He places a glass of water on the small table beside her.

Gertie's eyes crinkle and move to the small round objects in her limp hand, the lines around her mouth deepening.

"Alright soldier, but they only make the gangrene climb farther up this ol' leg o' mine, and they make my head all fuzzy soldier, just like the enemy wants." She complains eyeballing him.

"You're not working with them are you comrade, they ain't making a copperhead confederate outer' ya are they?"

Arnold's head bows, his long straggly hair shielding him from her sad untrusting look. He sighs again, both at her suspicion and the sound of another commotion picking up in the kitchen.

"_Who said you could maker yourself a sandwich! I fed you only an hour ago you greedy little brat!"_

Arnold pushes himself up shaking his head. He wants to scream. Instead he leans forward and gives his grandmother a hug.

"No grandma I'm on your side. Always. I'm going to the kitchen for a second" he explains standing up, "When I come back you'll get you're rations but only if you've taken those" He says, once again pointing.

He gives her a tired smile relieved as she salutes him before turning toward the television.

Arnold quickly saunters past the foyer and into the kitchen to find his mother screaming ugly sounding words in Spanish.

"Hey… HEY!" he repeats louder separating the two.

"What's going on? " He says looking between them and then adding, "Mom"

He already knows that Zada has done nothing and immediately thinks back to his mother's proposition earlier in the morning. How could he leave when the mere existence of the little girl by his side put his mother into such a rage, such a complete irrational rage?

Underneath his glare Stella immediately crumples into a dining room chair a look of hysteria pooling along with tears into her wide eyes.

"I'm fed up Arnold just fed up! She needs discipline and I'm- She can't just go around doing whatever she wants!" She cries throwing up both her arms, the wooden hand stabbing the air unnaturally.

"And you! You spoil her! Look at the mess I have to clean up now. She's… She's doing it on purpose she's trying to… trying to DRIVE ME ISANE!" She finishes her good hand shaking in a tight fist near her throat.

Arnold's mouth immediately drops open, a disbelieving rush of air whooshes from his lungs.

"How…" He guffaws, "What are you even talking about?! She's just a little girl!" He says throwing a hand back in Zada's direction.

"I asked her to help me make Grandma's lunch. I was going to clean up after her. Relax!"

From behind him Zada lets out a watery but defiant "Yeah!"

"Why you little monster don't you dare take that tone with me!" Stella lunges from her chair moving to strike, but is stopped short by a formidable obstacle. Arnold on instinct had quickly stepped in front of her, a cross between disbelief and horror on his face. Her line of attack gone, Stella sways back as if stricken. The red seeps from her eyes and her shoulders slump in defeat.

"Fine!" She cries stepping back, "Fine you clean up her mess since you're so hell bent on taking her side. LIKE you ALWAYS DO!" She says her eyes laying guilt into his. With that she storms from the kitchen and up into her room.

Arnold stands still listening to the house reverberate with her angry footsteps.

'_For such a small woman she makes a lot of noise.'_

He shakes his head as if throwing the angry sounds off and rubs his face viciously. Sighing, like he's been doing all morning, he turns to find Zada, her face covered in tears and a triumphant grin on her adorable oblong head.

He crouches down and rests his forehead against hers. Using the pads of his thumbs he brushes away the stubborn watermarks beneath her big green eyes.

"Hey Kiddo, how bout next time you let me do all the talking okay?" He says, deftly picking her up so she's sitting on his hip. Her small thin body barely weighs him down as she wraps her bony legs around his waist. He's glad he hasn't missed out on picking her up. In only a few more years she'll be too big.

"But I did not do anything Ar-nold. She es tracana!" Her defiant look coupled with red eyes and small mouth makes his heart hurt.

"I know kiddo, I know, it's just easier to ignore mean people though you know?" He tilts his head at her. "Otherwise you're only avivando el fuego del conflicto. Right?" He says putting her down and grabbing the forgotten peanut butter and banana sandwich from the kitchen counter.

"Here, go in and give this to grandma" he says handing over the plate as he turns to survey the damage, "and next time try and be a little neater" he calls after her as she runs into the next room.

"Fuck" He says both from the emotional exertion and a drop of honey that falls on his face from the ceiling. 'How in the hell did she get it up there' he thinks while grabbing a chair and a sponge from the sink.

He's almost done cleaning when he hears his grandmother calling after him.

"Arnold oh, Kimba get your patoot in here, it's Eleanor! Eleanor Roosevelt she's on the box!"

He groans placing the peanut butter container back in the cabinet before walking into the next room.

" What is it grandma I've gotta finish cleaning the kitchen" He says shooting a glare at Zada who grins sheepishly at him from the couch.

"Isn't that you're little friend Kimba, the one who used to pick on you. Oh I always liked her, she had spirit just like me at her age."

Arnold didn't respond. He couldn't, because there, right in front of him, was Helga. He momentarily is shocked that his grandmother remembers her at all, but quickly disregards the oddity. He could barely process his own surprise let alone her moment of clarity because there she was, there was no mistaking it. The tall blond on his television set was Helga, grown and beautiful, and nothing like he had imagined.

_I'm looking and I'm dreaming for the first time_

_I'm inside and I'm outside at the same time_

_And everything is real_

_Do I like the way I feel?_

Watching her smirk and shift in the tall set chairs, he realizes all his wonderings and daydreams were nothing but that, fantasies. They paled completely in comparison.

He was dumb struck. His imagination of her had always been an amalgamation of what he thought she might look like. What he had thought was somewhere between Olga and a young Miriam. But Helga was nothing like that. She was so much more… interesting.

_When the world crashes in into my living room_

_Television man made me what I am_

_People like to put the television down_

_But we are just good friends_

_(I'm a) television man_

She wasn't a cheerleader or the girl next door. Her beauty was unconventional, almost daunting. There was something so startling about her. She had turned into the kind of woman that your eye just drifted back to, as if her face held some secret.

Not that that was wholly surprising. She had always been like that in a way, different and infuriating how she always managed to stick in his mind. But he could never have imagined her, as she was, almost otherworldly in her odd beauty. Her heavy wild blond hair, big blue peepers and dark eyebrows made her look both dangerous and fragile. Even her sparse makeup and masculine but stylish clothes made sense. There was no doubt about it, she was all there, all Helga.

_I knew a girl, she was a macho man_

_But it's alright, I wasn't fooled for long_

_This is the place for me_

_I'm the king, and you're the queen_

"Turn it up Tex I can't hear what our first lady's saying!"

His grandmother's voice broke him from his trance and he clumsily leapt for the remote jabbing the volume button till the sound of Regis's voice filled the room.

" _- very talented for such a young, and beautiful lady I might add, as yourself, and you're from New York originally am I right?"_

He was about to hear her voice, for the first time in 10 years he would be hearing that powerful intonation that still cropped up in his dreams.

" _Yes, you __are__ right Regis. How did ever guess such a thing?"_

And there it was.

Helga's voice, deeper, still with that scratchy sarcastic wit, but different, toned down. The abrasive little girl turned into a fantastically mature stickler. She was obviously having fun with the standard interviewee position. He could see that mocking glint in her eye, the slight curl to her lip. God how he had missed her voice; that look! His stomach clenches with the realization and annoyance that he's not more distanced. He hates that he wants to curl up to the sound and the glow of her face; instead he eases into a sitting potion on top of the coffee table his eyes glued to the screen.

"_He's got these magic cue cards that little elves bring him" Kelly, Regis's co-host, cuts in._

"_They've got terrible handwriting too so forgive me if I get any of this wrong_."

The audience laughs.

"_You're a recent high school graduate but my little elves tell me you wrote this when you were 13, am I right?_

Helga shrugs easily, crossing her legs.

"_Well, I sort of wrote it when I was 13 but most of it was middle school crap, or sorry, drivel."_ She says giving a cheeky smile.

"_Oh watch out she's got a mouth on her!"_

More laughter from the audience.

"_So when did you decide to go back to it, and then how did it get to be in every book lovers hands in the nation?"_ Kelly questioned.

Arnold watches awed and amused as Helga rolls her deep blue eyes and leans back in her chair replying_, "Sorry bub, I've got no clue why people like my pre-puberty scribbles but to answer your first question I actually did it to get an easy A."_

The sound of the audience making a verbal chuckle of understanding can be heard as Regis laughs at Helga unintended joke. _"Well isn't that interesting, what grade was this?"_

"_11th"_ she continues_, "Ironically my teacher downgraded me on account of it being too long and not a "strict" autobiography. That was the assignment, by the way, to write a story about your life"_ She adds.

"_So hey I colored it up a little so sue me! You'd think she would've been grateful for something other than 'Once upon a time there was Me and I did stuff like go to school and worry about my SATs and whether the hunky quarterback wants to feel me up after the game on Saturday night.'_

"_I don't know, I might like to read about the hunky quarterback" _Kelly quips earning her a giggle from the females in the studio.

"_So then this isn't just a fiction_?" Regis asks, fingering the soft cover version of the book Arnold had held earlier this morning.

Helga frowns at that bringing a hand up to scratch the side of her face.

"_I like to think all fiction has a bit of truth, and all non-fiction has a bit of lies. As my mom likes to say sometimes instead of a few grains there's a whole bag. "_

The two hosts nod their head in agreement.

"_For those of you who are just joining us, or have been living under a rock, __The Bully's Pink Ribbon__, written by the lovely Helga Pataki here, is about the heart wrenching story of a neglected 9 year old, who to cover up her natural need for love becomes a bully, all the while harboring a deep crush for the boy she tortures the most_."

Arnold's breath get's caught and he coughs annoyed. He doesn't like how nerved this is making him feel. He irrationally has the urge to shut it off before they get any closer to home.

" _So were you a bully?"_ Kelly purrs.

"_Yeah, I was a bully and yeah I picked on some goody-two-shoes dork that I had the hots for but that story's old news. Half the prepubescent girls across the world past and present have done that at least once in their lives. "_

"_Which is why, I'm sure, you're book has become so popular. You give a voice to the universal theme."_ Regis says with a grand gesture.

"_I know I picked on my first crush. Sorry Mike"_ Kelly says aside to the camera.

"_But what about this Roland boy, is he real or just another great literary character?"_

Arnold's legs twitch and he frowns his concentration doubling ten fold as everything else falls away. His grandmother's soft barbs at his expense, Zada's giggling from the couch behind him, he can't hear them. It's as if he's been waiting months for the answer to this question. Ever since the book came out and girls started referring to him by that name he's felt like a puppet or a figment, only existing as an embodiment of someone else's idea. Now the question would be answered; was he indeed a real boy or just a wooden marionette of Helga's making?

She too seems to weigh the question. For a moment there is dead air as her long eyelashes pull down as she stares at her ridiculously hip shoes. She looks up, a nervy frown twitching the corner of her lips and then she looks at him. It's just for a fraction of a second, her glance into the camera, but her dark blue irises bore into his and he feels all of a sudden woozy.

"No" she says her mouth forming a thin line as she turns her hard gaze back onto Regis.

"No, and that's sort of the point. He's only a fantasy of what she wants him to be. " Her brow furrows as if she's collecting all her thoughts for this one answer.

"She has no idea what kind of person he really is. She never gets close enough, or allows him to get close enough to show her. He's really just this crummy substitute of a figurehead that stands in opposition to her father's lack of a moral compass. She needs him to be better, than her, than everybody, because it gives her hope. He makes her feel like maybe she could be something more than the bad apple or that maybe it doesn't have to be her against the world. The pedestal that she created for him enables her to throw out the shitty notion that people are instinctively selfish and there's no use but to watch your own back because no one else is going to." She says appearing almost agitated as she waves a thin arm littered with chunky bracelets.

"No little kid really wants to believe that the world is just one big rat race where you always gotta watch your back and take what's yours before someone else does. That's a crap way to look at the world. So she builds this massive shrine to some kid who shows her an inch of kindness and then treats him like shit. The reason why she bullies him is, sure, to keep him at arms length but it's more than that for cripes sake! Don't get me wrong she's definitely terrified of rejection but she's more afraid of finding out he's just your less then stellar adolescent boob just like everyone else. She can't let him in for fear that he'll go ruining this ideal by acting like some normal slob!"

She finishes her rant her eyes lit up and harsh.

'So I'm not real', he thinks. 'Just some crummy figurehead…'

In his sleep-deprived mind he believes her. He can feel himself disappearing, his fingertips and toes tingling from lack of movement, like he's turning to stone.

'I'm not real' he thinks, 'I'm not real' it repeats in his head like a whisper intent on driving him insane. Unable to process this information he raises his wooden hands and touches his face. It feels cool, though the room is hot, almost unbearably so.

"But in your book he seems to be that person! Okay yes I did actually read this book guys and it's great!" Kelly gushes turning to the audience.

Helga gives a less than gracious thanks before the older woman continues.

"I mean I fell in love with the little guy, just like Barb, he's so sweet and forgiving I just can't believe it was all in her head! There must have been something there, something to make her so obsessed with him in the first place" Kelly says, pushing for an answer Helga seems to be unwilling to give.

Arnold can't take the existential rollercoaster any longer. He stands swaying slightly on his heels. "I'm going to go take a nap," he says to no one in particular.

He's not sure if either of his boob tube buddies responds because his ears are still strained on the tin sounding voices coming from the old TV stereo.

Though his back is to the television, to her, he can tell that she's probably scowling.

"Fine" She says her voice betraying her annoyance at her explanation not being taken as fact.

"If you want the romantic answer then yes, he was one hell of a foundation"

In the doorway Arnold pauses, struck by the inflection of her voice at the end of her sentence. It was soft, and if he wasn't hearing wrong, a little nostalgic. He turns back to the glow of her face hopeful.

She looks bashful staring once again at her shoes. A small smile begins to pull the corners of her lips up, and it's not sardonic or mocking. She looks wistful and it makes Arnold's cold face heat with a bit of blush.

"He was worthy of her Lo-, obsessive attention, okay? He was worthy..."

* * *

><p><em>He dreams he's caught in a game with a 9-year-old demon. She is beautiful and made out of yellow fire. He chases her down familiar alleyways trying to catch up but she's terribly elusive. Just as he believes she'll stop and meet him she disappears all together leaving him in dark shadows wondering where to go from there.<em>

_The dark eats him up starting with his edges. Without her he does not exist. He isn't real without the girl made of yellow and fire. When the dark takes him the dream changes but like most dreamers he doesn't notice._

_In the dream a shadow comes back to town. It is a woman whose back is always to the sun as it sets. Last night he thought he saw her he thinks, bellow his window. In the dream he can't see her face. It bothers him immensely. He is the only one who cannot recognize her and it makes his obsession grow, his love, but she is worth of his obsessive attention._

_He is at the cheese festival. Though the cheese festival no longer comes to town. The Mayor decrees it an unhealthy holiday. Child obesity is to blame. In his dream it's brighter and bigger than before. They are all there, even those who have moved away or died or no longer come to play. He comes with Lila but she quickly leaves him for Stinky. He's not sad just agitated when she says laughing "how silly you don't recognize her, don't you love her or something?"_

_He tries to see her but her back is always to the sun as it sets._

_On the edge of the carnival they find an empty booth where the shadow strings him up like a puppet and leaves him to dangle. On the other side the woman with no face ties pink ribbons through her fire yellow hair. Her hair is the only thing defined outlined by the bright sun as it sets._

_He has a great urge to tell her she's 'so so pretty', and that he's missed her all this time. But he can't the strings don't move his mouth to open but pull each cheek up until he's caught stuck in a smile too big. The smile is bigger than his face and it is frozen._

_The woman with her back to the sun is beautiful and frightening. She picks up large wooden balls from a black top hat. She rears back an arm and pitches. It is a powerful throw. It knocks out his front left tooth and before he wakes he hears her say, "I'm sorry"._

* * *

><p>He wakes up abruptly, though from what he's unsure. He feels terrible. His back hurts and his throat is as dry as dust. He lays there for a moment his body drenched in sweat and his head still fuzzy from the dream. It wasn't a nightmare but he's left feeling drained and unsettled.<p>

It might have been the heat that woke him or his phone violently buzzing on his nightstand but not the dream. He wishes he could have stayed there.

'Water' is his first cognitive thought but instead of reaching for the glass by his bedside he grabs his phone and flips it open.

'Hello" he croaks.

"Hello to you too horse voice McGee" Gerald's in a teasing mood and it only makes his head ache further.

"What's up with you? Ya fall asleep in a desert, it's not that hot out brotha…" He listens to Gerald chuckle at his own joke. He doesn't respond and he's not amused. The dream has left a mood hanging over him.

"Okay fine maybe it is" his best friend concedes after a moment of silence, " Your air conditioner on the fritz again?"

Arnold groans swinging his sticky legs off the bed and shooting a bleary red eye at the ancient monolith by his closet.

"Don't remind me," he says reaching behind and blindly grabbing the room temperature glass from his nightstand.

"Dude why do you sound like Tom Hanks from Cast Away, you caught the summer flu or something?"

Arnold takes a long gulp of water that is anything but refreshing and replies, "Nah not really. I just didn't sleep much last night so I was trying to take a nap."

Gerald responds with a low sound of disapproval, "Mmm mm m take it from me man, naps are bad news. Timberly's nappen' all the time and she wakes up a bigger bitch then she was before, it's awful."

"Gerald, you really shouldn't call your sister a bitch." Arnold sighs standing up and stalking over to his dirty laundry. He grabs an undershirt and wipes the sweat dripping from his head.

"Arnold she's a hormonal she-devil. If I wasn't getting my own place soon I might have to buy a silver cross and holy water to subdue her."

Arnold laughs, letting the topic drop. He knows Gerald loves his sister no matter what he tends to call her.

"Anyway man at least you'll be plenty awake for Rhonda's annual extravaganza!"

'Oh god no' he thinks a groan already pushing past his lips.

"Nah hold up, we're not doing this again. You do this every year man and it takes me like an hour to break you down. You know you're just gonna end up saying yes, so to save my precious time and your poor messed up voice I'll drop the bomb now. Guess whose coming to dinner sweetheart!"

Briefly Arnold's heart does an extra beat but he squashes the feeling.

'_Just because she was on TV doesn't mean…'_

Images from his dream filter back from his subconscious and he has to make an effort to keep his voice even.

"Who?" He says, successfully pulling off disinterest.

"Helga G. Pataki"

* * *

><p>"You think I should've shaved?"<p>

Three hours later Arnold stands in boxers and an undershirt pawing the light colored scruff on his chin. He feels incomprehensibly stupid. Though he's never said it aloud, seeing Helga again is making him nervous. Very nervous and he can't seem to figure out how to make the feeling stop.

Gerald in a show of brotherly love showed up to do damage control, that, and laugh his ass off.

He doesn't know what he finds more unnerving, Gerald's nonchalance at his obvious attempt to be suave or his own abnormal behavior.

After what seems like the last fit of laughter Gerald leans back throwing his arms across the red upholstery. He runs a hand over his flat corn rowed head and lets his face take on a mock look of contemplation.

"Nah man girls like the unshaven look." He lets out another giggle, "They think it's… Sexy…mrphaha!"

Overcome by another fit of giggles, Arnold waits, his mood slowly souring as Gerald wipes another set of tears from his eyes.

"Gerald, would you knock it off already! I'm not trying to woo her or anything," he says, ignoring the twist in his gut, "I just don't want to look like a complete slob. Is that too much to ask?" He says on the verge of desperation and an anxiety attack.

"Cool it brotha I got you. I mean if my personal bully ended up writing a best selling novel about her undying love for me I'd be all a flutter too." He gets up from the couch and walks over to where Arnold stands perplexed eyeing a pair of black dress pants and button down shirt.

"Alright let the master of cool take over. I'ma get you styling, no worries, and it'll even look like you weren't trying too hard, even if you most definitely are."

"Gerald…"

"Okay buddy okay" Gerald says holding up his hands in surrender, "First things first, ditch the dress slacks man, I don't know who you think you are or where you're going but it ain't a funeral and you most definitely ain't James Bond."

"Okay" Arnold says, taking no offence he places the black slacks back into his closet.

"What about the shirt."

"Don't rush me." Gerald says tapping his chin and the small soul patch he's let grow. "I got it. Keep the shirt cuz it's linen so it won't be too hot, but wear it open over your wife beater, and then" he pauses turning around his eyes scrolling over to Arnold's laundry basket, "for pants I say go with the black jeans you cut into shorts." He says picking them up from the top of the laundry, the jean material frayed at the knee.

"But they're dirty …"

Gerald quickly sticks his nose into the black cloth taking a whiff, "don't smell bad to me," he says tossing the article into Arnold's arms.

Arnold gives them a once over before shrugging and stepping into them. He then grabs the black shirt off the hanger punching his hands through the arms and turning toward the mirror on the back of his door. He adjusts himself, rolling up the sleeves and smoothing out the collar.

" If it were me I'd rock a chain but we don't want you looking like white trash now would we?"

"No we wouldn't, now what about shoes" Arnold says rolling his eyes and then looking down at his toes.

Gerald makes a distressed sound throwing his arms up in frustration, "Come on man! Those fresh kicks I got you. What's the point in me running a rising retail business if my friends ain't gonna rock my shit"

"Oh yeah" Arnold grins sheepishly throwing a hand up behind to scratch the back of his head.

It's not that Arnold wasn't proud of his best friend, or that he didn't think the shoes were cool. He reached underneath his bed and fingered around for the familiar feel of smooth cardboard.

He was actually kind of jealous at how quickly Gerald had managed to make the doodles in the back of his binder into a sustainable business. He now was making enough to bring on two new designers not to mention his online sales had caught the attention of a major league company like Converse .

It had only taken him four years, and while Arnold didn't agree with his decision to forgo college right now, he had to admit he was already excelling at his dream job, so what was there left to learn.

"I thought you would like these ones man, they're not as… you know flashy" Gerald whined grabbing the box from his hands and pulling out a shoe.

"Gerald, I was just about to put them on. Don't get all offended, you know I think you're the bestest." He teased, " You know me I roll out of bed and put on whatever's clean and available, I've been wearing the same messed up boots since 10th grade. "

Gerald tossed him the shoe and gave an all-knowing, "mhhmm" before admiring his own reflection. Arnold chuckles, reveling in Gerald's vanity.

"That's your problem man, girls like a man who takes care of his appearance. Look at me, I might have my main lady Phoebe by my side but that doesn't mean other's ain't checking out the goods." He said flashing Arnold a goofy smile while grabbing his vintage trilby hat and doing a spin.

It was now Arnold's turn to laugh. Gerald could be such a peacock it really was hilarious, but at least he knew it, and could crack a good joke at his own expense.

"Okay buddy how bout it, you ready to face 'Horrible Helga' for the first time in 10 years!" Gerald says with his fake announcer voice.

Arnold lets out another nervous laugh and finishes tying his shoes.

"As ready as I'll ever be Gerald. That's for sure"

* * *

><p>Authors note: Sorry about the line breakes for those of you who read this before I did an edit. Must have been confusing. Anyway I hope you like. Phoebe is a difficult character to write for me since I want her to retain her 'brainy' asthetic but personally I believe with age she would phase out the need to act the certain way she does as a child. So let me know what you think. REVIEW!<p> 


	10. The Pre - Of It All

Phoebe had always been a minimalist. Her room is little changed from her youth. But then as Helga remembers, there was little to change.

The bed was still in the far corner on the floor, the wood beneath it uncluttered and swept clean. Her large mahogany desk still sat dark and studious, her bonsai tree still living, still growing and being reigned back.

It was really only the small things that had changed. Things missing from her memory, or replaced, that told Helga that time had passed. But again, these were the almost insignificant. A new photo of her and Gerald at Dino Land, an embroidered sash upon the wall, a cactus plant. The only large item that had somehow smuggled its way into a space filled with small proportions is an elaborate wood framed paper divider. Yet even this piece seemed to have been there forever. Easily morphing into it's surrounding landscape with its hand painted depiction of tumbleweeds and desert plains.

Helga almost laughs at its perfection. Phoebe's room has always been her self personified. Half Eastern and half Western.

Helga's bedroom had never been like that. Neither the Hillwood or Boston bedroom remarked on her tastes. Even her friends back home used to remark on how impersonal it was. Just an empty space filled with whatever was given or dragged home. She didn't spend much time there. It was just a room, something of a necessity, somewhere to sleep and reboot for the coming day. But she barely used it for that and she shudders now to remember why.

"Hey, will you hand me the blue shirt on the third hook in my closet"

Helga rustles herself from her musings and gets up from her perch on the desk. The accordion door opens easily and she thrusts her hand in for the item described. The feeling of the shirt is slinky and quickly drops from the hanger into her hands.

"Think fast" she says tossing the deep blue garment over the divider.

"So, do you want to borrow a t-shirt or something?" She hears Phoebe ask as she attacks a bug bite on her elbow.

Helga's eyebrows furrow, "Um, no I was uh planning to go as is, why?"

The tinkle of Phoebe's giggles drift from behind a paper sun and Helga frowns looking down at the beaded top she'd fought to wear on camera. When she looks up Phoebe is dressed and visible brushing down her front over her silver cuffed shorts.

"Oh no reason. I just thought you might want to change since someone might notice."

"Notice?" Helga deadpans crossing her arms.

"Oh it's probably nothing, I was just calculating the probability of people recognizing you from your outfit this morning, you know since you wore it on TV."

"Oh come on Phoebes," Helga scoffs, "only old people and nurse's watch that show. That's why I agreed to be on it in the first place. I couldah been on Conan if I wanted!"

Phoebe nods heading over to her desk to grab a small silver necklace and hoop earrings.

"Well that's what I originally thought, teens being such late risers, but then I considered the number of those doing summer internships, or those who never went to sleep the night prior, and the fact that even if they did not watch it in their own homes Dan's electronics window display is all TVs and I know those are set on ABC constantly. So to sum up I believe there is more than a possibility that someone will recognize you from the show." Phoebe finishes, while applying some foundation and lip-gloss.

"Jeez Phoebe when did you become the first fashion police to have an I.Q. over 120?"

"My I.Q is just shy of 140… and when you started tweezing your unibrow" Phoebe quips, the smallest of smiles curving around her cheek.

"Touché" Helga laughs, turning back to the closet.

" So what're my chances?" She says turning back to the closet, "or do I really have to go looking like a flat chested little girl?"

Helga turns holding up one of Phoebe's strapless dresses to illustrate. The bust is three sizes to big.

"28.7, is my hesitant estimation."

"That's still kinda high." Helga says putting back another hanger.

"As I said, hesitant estimation. Anyway I'm sure we can find something if you really want. It's not like I'm so much bigger than you." Phoebe grumbles, crossing her slender arms beneath her bust.

For a moment Helga doesn't respond and the sound of rapid-fire hanger movement fills the air. As she comes to the back the sound slows and a peak of red catches her eye. She throws the rest of the hangers back and a beautiful red Kimono style top is revealed. She grabs it from the hanger and turns.

"What about this," she says and then noticing Phoebe's stance, rolls her eyes, "Criminy Phoebe you're not fat!" she insists, "I just meant you have fat, unlike poor bag- a –bones me."

" Oh please you have the body of a model"

"Yeah a model with no boobs"

Phoebe shakes her head, both at Helga self-flagellating comment and her final choice of clothing.

"Helga, my mom brought that back from my parent's anniversary in Japan. I haven't even worn it yet!"

"Hey, it's your own fault. I was bout to go as I am but some little brainiac had to go and open her big mouth. " Helga says, throwing off her top without a second thought and shrugs into the satin material.

"Oh my god, you're not even wearing a braw!" Phoebe squeaks her eyes shooting to the ceiling.

'_She always was a modest girl' _Helga smirks.

"No boobs no need, " she says tying the shirt closed and then frowning.

"You can't wear it without a shirt Helga, it comes down to low."

"Well I can see that now Phoebe" Helga says fingering the deep plunge of fabric.

"Here"

Helga's too slow for the tank top that's tossed at her and it hits her in the face before falling into her open hands.

"You can keep it actually, it will probably fit you better. It's one of those model-y shirts for girls with no boobs" Phoebe grins grabbing her purse.

"hardy-har" Helga retorts slipping the slinky material on and tucking it into her pants. It's red like the kimono and swoops low over her small bust. The straps come to an X in the back and, like Phoebe said, was meant for someone who didn't need a braw, or had a fantastically elaborate one.

"Sweet" Helga says pulling the kimono back on and grabbing her bag.

"You ready?"

There's a glint in Phoebe's eyes as she says this but Helga opts to ignore it.

"Born ready bitch and ya better believe it"

But she's not. As Phoebe leaves Helga hesitates.

For a moment she is stuck frozen, her foot just in the doorway between Phoebe's room and hallway. She is stalling, she knows, but can't help it. A wave of apprehension comes over her and she has to grind her teeth to push the feeling down. She tries not to wonder why. She purposefully ignores the possible reasons, she doesn't even think about it. The blockage clears and she steps forward following Phoebe out the door.

_**Close your eyes for what you can't imagine;**_

_**we are the xany gnashing caddy smashing,**_

_**bratty ass; he mad, he snatched his daddy's Jag**_

_**And used the shit for batting practice,**_

_**adamant and he thrashing purchasing crappy grams**_

_**with half the hand of cash you handed**_

_**Panicking, patch me up; Pappy done latch keyed us**_

_**Toying with Raggy Anns and mammy done had enough**_

_**Brash as fuck, breaching all these aqueducts; don't believe us**_

_**Treat us like we can't erupt, yup – Rich Kids – Frank Ocean -**_

Gerald likes parties, always has. He likes the opportunity to 'cut loose', 'kick back' and 'act a fool'. He was a party hardy kind of guy and it was an image he worked hard to cultivate.

Arnold, at best, humored this side of his friend but in reality he found the whole circus tiring.

He's not sure when social events started to grate on him. He guesses the mixture of natural exhaustion he marks up at home and the switch from light innocent affairs to dark and dangerous riots has something to do with it.

As a kid he liked parties, liked the whole fiasco that went with disposable cups and quick rhythmic music. He liked dressing up and dancing, getting into a festive if not silly mood. He even liked the stressful job of hosting and used to outdo even Rhonda, which was a feet in itself.

He can't remember the last time he's thrown a party that wasn't a boarding house function. He's already planning for a certain little ones birthday. He's just about invited the whole town and is maybe a little over anxious about it all.

'_I might be rusty'_ he thinks_ ' but at least I'll play better music than this.'_

He cringes against some asinine pop whine and takes another sip of beer.

It's not that he doesn't like parties anymore; it's more that he doesn't like what parties have become.

It was all about drinking and getting stupidly "fucked up", almost like a competition over who could humiliate themselves first but that's not really what bothered him. It was the forced conversations and social one-upmanship of drug taking and fast-talking that put him off. It was like playing a part in some bad movie, a 90's rendition of the 60's though they were in neither era. Everyone was just so cool, just so tragically hip that it took him all of 3 minutes before he found he had nothing to say, nothing to add to the bad plot line.

What was worse was that Gerald was constantly dragging him to these sorts of things. Ever since Lila dumped him it was his M.O. to loosen Arnold up and "get laid".

He doesn't know how to tell him that he's never felt interested or remotely comfortable with such an idea. Not that he's ever downright refused such a proposition, he was a hormonal teenager after all, but it was the oppression of the role that bothered him. Like because he was a male that's what he needed to unwind.

And Gerald didn't get that. He knew his best bud was just trying to help him the only way he knew how. He knew Gerald was forcing him into dark closets with drunken girls and buying beer and liquor with his brother's old ID to get Arnold 'out of his head' but he's not sure it's really working.

Like taking shrooms didn't help him to forget his mother's missing a hand and that his grandma is slowly dying.

Like ecstasy didn't help him feel better about how his sister doesn't seem to have a birthday, and his mother's complete refusal to answer a question she should know.

Like being pushed into an empty bedroom with some girl named Lara, whom he barely knew did anything but make him feel emptier and emptier.

That was at the graduation party, once again thrown by Rhonda. They had gotten down to their underwear before the girl passed out in his arms. He had to bring her out half naked into the living room so someone could call the paramedics.

Rhonda had a screaming fit and through a bucked of ice water over her.

Luckily that seemed to do the trick.

No cops, no paramedics, no sex, just a whole lot of embarrassment.

And he's not sure he minded, because even now when he thinks about it, if the night had gone as planned, he probably would still feel… well, weird about it.

He wanted to want that sort of thing. He really did, because it seemed 'normal' like a normal guy thing to do and he wanted to be normal. He wanted to be a normal guy who slept around and didn't feel bad about it.

Stinky and Sid didn't feel bad about chasing girls and then chalking them up to another conquest. Neither did Harold after he broke it off with Patty,

'_though'_, Arnold nods his head to himself, '_he did in the long run_.'

Even Rhonda was known to sleep around before and during her time with Thad and Thad being Thad, well, he didn't seem to mind. As the rumor mill would tell it apparently there had been even some threesomes involved.

It wasn't just his old childhood friends who were into this kind of living. It wasn't just Gerald who seemed to think this was the answer to everything. Everyone he knew was doing it and Rhonda's summer bash was like the annual anniversary of all debauchery ever invented. Each floor always worst than the last, which was why he always found himself on the roof where the cool night air seemed to relieve some of the steam coming out of everyone's ears.

"Hey you got any chips?"

He hears Nadine ask.

Gerald whose sitting by his right and playing some toy bongos slaps the cheap toy double time for the guy across from him playing a beat up guitar.

" Nah sweet lady Jane, Mary's hiding in my man's pocket again" Gerald rhymes, wiggling his eyebrows at their longtime friend.

Arnold rolls his eyes puts down the harmonica he's been playing and gets to his knees. He's been sitting on his legs for so long a tingle shoots up from his foot as he fishes into the back pocket.

"Gimme a sec" he says smiling across the circle at her.

They'd smoked only a half hour ago and Gerald had a tendency to get over flirtatious when inebriated. He's not sure how Phoebe puts up with it but apparently it never went beyond that.

He plops back down into the circle, careful not to sit too close to the girl on his left. He can tell she remembers him from the ice water incident but isn't sure if she remembers much before that. He thinks maybe, since she keeps scooting closer to him as she sways with some busted tambourine.

The roof always attracted the "artsy type' not that he counted himself as such, but most of the time he preferred their conversation over the drunk pre frat boys and fashionistas of the floors bellow.

Ignoring the purposeful nudge his way he leans forward handing over the packed baggie.

He smiles sheepishly as his fingers brush Nadine's. Her eyes smile at him before leaning back and dropping to the half dutch between her feet.

He subtly shakes his head at himself, '_asshole_' he thinks.

Nadine is gorgeous. Like really.

She looks like some golden goddess or something the way her blond curls stood up in the most immaculate afro he's ever seen.

'Even better than Gerald's'

Sometimes she rocks the old braids of her youth but even then she can't get away from looking anything but womanly. Her full lips curl just slightly at the edges and her hazel eyes always flash with a sexy inner life. She'd grown into a full woman with wide hips but it looked good on her. But what Arnold liked most is that regardless of her new found looks she hadn't really changed. She was still the cool collected quieter counter part of her long time best friend. They were similar in that way and sort of recognized it. The recognition almost had gone as far as a kiss last summer but Arnold had missed his chance.

She was dating some college kid majoring in insectology now and he couldn't compete with that.

Her true love had always been bugs after all.

But if locked in a closet with her he definitely wouldn't object.

'_Asshole_' he thinks again smiling.

"Alright we're in business!"

Nadine holds up her perfectly rolled blunt and lights the tip inhaling.

"So I heard the infamous Helga Pataki is coming to pay us a visit." Nadine says between puffs of smoke.

"Yep" he says his voice purposefully light. People have been asking this question all night, and it is purposefully directed at him in the same aggravatingly knowing and mocking tone.

He's getting pretty sick of it.

"Nervous" She says cheekily

The heavy smell of bubblegum cush and burning scented paper clouds his already inebriated mind and he takes a swig of his beer instead of answering. It's some fancy hipster kind he's never had before. Gerald was adamant on buying it. He stares at the pink pig on the front of the can.

"He's shitting his panties" Gerald says while accepting the smoking blunt.

"Shut up Gerald" Arnold winces.

Gerald pulls in, his eyes watering a little and then exhales.

"Oh I'm sorry sweetheart, don't be mad, give daddy some sugar." He says leaning in for a kiss. When Arnold shoves him he pivots and falls into his lap instead.

"You guys are adorable" Nadine says hiding a grin behind her delicate hand.

"And don't we know it" Gerald declares before taking another drag.

"Get off me Gerald" Arnold deadpans grabbing the blunt from his hands and taking a hit. He's cranky from all the teasing at his expense and Gerald's rubbing him the wrong way.

"But I'm so cooomffoortaabllee"

Arnold grins and holds an exuberant amount of ash still clinging to the ember above Gerald's nose.

"You wouldn't dare"

"Shitting your panties huh?"

Gerald leans up grumbling something like 'sour puss' before grabbing the forgotten bongos and picking back up on his rhythms.

Lara who's commandeered the guitar leans forward her eyes squinting over the smoke.

"Whatcha guys talking about?" she says her nasal drawl dripping with feigned interest.

She holds her hand out for the bud and Arnold hands it to her though he's only had a hit. He frowns annoyed.

"Only Arnold's long lost love" Gerald laughs punctuating the sound with his drumbeat.

"Oh really? And who would that be?" Lara leans in more the butt of the guitar digging into his leg.

"The infamous Helga G. Pataki, Author of the Bully's Pink Ribbon, and our old grade school buddy." Nadine clarifies smiling.

"You mean you guys know her!" David the quite artist and owner of the guitar finally joins the conversation. Lara passes him the now markedly smaller blunt but he waves it aside and Nadine takes it scrutinizing its size and glares at Lara.

"Know her! For 9 years she tormented us before packing it up and moving to Boston! Know her, Arnold IS Roland man!" Gerald finishes his hands in the air.

"I am NOT Roland." Arnold grinds out.

He could really slap Gerald right now.

"Ew, you mean that pink book everyone's obsessing about. I tried reading it but it was just so annoying. All that shit about her parents and being in love at three, and who writes like that anyway, completely impossible to read."

"Maybe it's cuz you can't" Nadine mumbles.

Before the girls can get into a catfight David blurts out his gushing review.

"I don't know what Lara's talking about! I just loved that book" David says blushing and clasps his hands bashfully.

"Of course you did David. It speaks to your feminine sensibilities." Gerald laughs but not unkindly. David was in fact quite feminine.

"Not to mention your own ridiculous pining over Eugene. You really should just tell him already." Nadine says before clipping the roach and dropping it into a baggie for later.

"But he's straight"

"Straight as my curly ass head"

….

Arnold has stopped listening. The less he hears about_ the book_ the happier, no, the calmer he will be.

He takes another swig of beer.

Gerald has urged him to ease his nerves with some substances and now he was pleasantly drifting between tipsy and drunk with the new buoyancy of weed lightening the whole experience. Surprisingly it was doing the trick. His palms were no longer dripping wet and the fucking fairies have finally quite bouncing on his organs.

He sighs leaning his head against the low brick wall and stares up at the sky. The color is a vibrant orange and purple. He knows it's only the lights reflecting back off the pollution but it looks pretty. He finds the purple city fog and night clouds distracting, which is good, he wants to stay distracted.

He's doing his very best not to think of the upcoming reunion. He is not trying to work out everything he'll say, every scenario so they won't be caught in an awkward moment.

He's been doing it all day and it's done nothing but drive Gerald insane and make his insides feel icky.

He thinks maybe he'd feel fine if Gerald would stop fucking with him.

Arnold picks up his harmonica and brings it to his lips hoping it will distract him a little longer.

…..

"Arnold, yo Arnold, HEY ARNOLD!'

"What? Oh Gerald, sorry man"

"Daydreaming of your fair lady? No worries I've just got the text, mah baby's here! Meaning… so we're going down stairs you comin?"

Arnold frowns mostly at Gerald's asshole-ery but also at the feeling of the fairies picking up the jig again.

"Um no" he finally says, "I'll think I'll stay up here a little longer"

"Oohh I gotcha" Gerald winks backing his way up to the hatch, party in tow, " Let her come to you, smart, I like it"

Arnold rolls his eyes knowing that Gerald won't notice.

" You know what, I think I'll stay too" He hears Lara say and immediately cringes. The last thing he wants is to be stuck on the roof with her. The last, last thing he wants is for Helga to see him sitting with a girl who wears a sparkly headband with feathers around her forehead.

"Oh hey Lara, I heard Sid's giving out free yayo samples" Nadine says nonchalantly.

The sequins and feathered head does a quick double take and then smiles, a little too big.

"On the other hand I really gotta pee" Lara says quickly embarking down the ladder.

Arnold mouths a thank you before Nadine disappears as well.

And then he is left alone.

(except for the damn fairies)

**Not sure if I like that ending. Oh well. I finished this in a rush cause I had a MINUTE. Hope you guys like my holiday gift. if you doooo give me the gift of REVIEWWWWS! EDIT: I wanted to mention that I've set this fanfic somewhere around 2007 simply because that's when I began college and I was 9 in 1997-8 as was Arnold and the gang... well hell they were 9 for a few years there but anyway I hope that clears up any questions about the 90's 60's comment.**


	11. The Party

**Every single night / I endure the flight / Of little wings of white-flamed Butterflies in my brain / These ideas of mine / Percolate the mind / Trickle down the spine / Swarm the belly, swelling to a blaze / That's when the pain comes in / Like a second skeleton / Trying to fit beneath the skin / I can't fit the feelings in / Every single night's alight with my brain**

Helga walks down the steps of Phoebe's brown stone, quickly sidestepping a drenched adolescent carrying a monkey wrench. Across the street a cop and two fire fighters are recapping a hydrant. A small group of soaked teenagers and parents stand around heckling them.

"Remind you of when we were kids?" Phoebe smiles.

Helga, distracted by a familiar looking man with one hand deep within a trash bin, is slow to respond, "hmm? Yeah I guess."

There's something about the shape of the man's balding head that catches her attention.

" Hey do you recognize that guy?" She asks pointing. The man, who she assumes is homeless, is now fully engrossed with the contents inside the trash bin. His upper torso is bent at the waist and his head is concealed by it's darkness.

Phoebe faces forward her smile dimming at the sight. She leans over to respond when the man rears up from his trash, taking note of them.

"Oh look! It is little half Asian girl, hello little half Asian girl… Ph - obe eh?"

He's filthy. His long straggly hair lies like a greasy ring around his head. His clothes, an old worn out suit, is covered in dark stains and holes, the left pant leg teared to shreds at the cuff. He look's emaciated. The suit jacket, which he wears without a shirt, dwarfs his chest and amplifies his protruding red belly.

"Hi Mr. Kokoschka." Phoebe says her hands already digging around in her purse. She drops what she finds into his open waiting hand.

Helga blinks. 'Kokoschka?' she thinks. Why was the name so familiar, or that nervous laugh, or the way he stood knees bent, posture terrible with that stupid nasty grin on his face. And then it hits her. This man used to live in the same house as… She stops unable to finish the thought.

This creep lived with him. She remembers now. He was always calling her ugly and other less favorable things, '_The little shit_' she thinks eyes narrowing.

The guy was barely on her radar when she was young, a blip of an asshole in her asshole filled life. But she had always connected him with her past beloved, as another testament to his unending patience.

He had defended this man as a part of his family. The patience shown to the infuriating Czech had often made her feel guilty. She could barely be in the same room as her sister, but that wonderful little orphaned boy had enough room in his heart to defend that louse as part of his clan. So why in the hell was he now on the streets?

"Oh you're too kind Ph-obe, too kind…"

Kokoschka counts his change and then raises his yellow grin to address them again.

"You don't have a little more? You see my left femur isn't so good" He whines touching his neck. Phoebe hooks Helga's arm nudging her forward, the correct location of the left femur whispered under her breath.

Oscars, screws up his face a look of recognition crossing his sunburned features. They're already walking past him when he calls out, "Hey I know you!"

Helga, embarrassed and confused at her reaction, rights her head and looks away.

"You're Arnold's ugly little girlfriend! Yes, with the unibrow, all grown and pretty. Hey, he he complements is not free hehe yes hehe! Come on just a little more money? For my femur!"

Helga's heart beats in her ears. His girlfriend, hah, like they had even gotten that close.

His voice fades as they round the corner and Helga, distracted by the wild rhythm in her chest, almost collides into a group of old men playing dominoes. She rights herself on the corner of their plastic table and then straightens. She walks quickly on too embarrassed to apologies.

"Sorry" Phoebe says for her.

"No problem Chiquita anything for a pretty face!"

"Que bonita" and "God bless" the old men call before returning back to their game.

"God I hate old perverts like that" Helga growls, trying to distract from her awkward moment.

"Oh come on Helga their harmless, in fact I find their brand of male chauvinism endearing. It's much better than the obscenities you hear from construction workers, or Mr. Kokoschka for that matter. Their 'cat calling' it's almost reverential."

Helga fidgets, "Yeah whatever." She pauses then whips around to face Phoebe. "What's the deal with Mr. Kokoschka being a bum" She laughs nervously, "I mean he's always been a bum, but what, he just decided one day to live on the street? What's the story?" She rambles unnerved at the visceral reaction she's just endured. There was no reason for her to give two shits if Kokoschka fulfilled his true potential, or lack there of.

"Oh um, well I heard from Gerald that Arnold kicked him out, but that was a while ago now." Phoebe offers up with a shrug.

"What!?" Helga says whirling around.

Realizing her reaction is disproportional she turns away, crosses her arms, and continues to walk.

"I mean that doesn't sound like old football head. I mean he used to consider that guy his family right, I mean you remember." She says, praying her voice sounds normal, detached.

Phoebe sighs mirroring Helga's posture. "Yeah well things change."

There's a pause. Helga walks with her head bent and Phoebe waits for the next question.

"Is he that different?" She asks her face still tilted to the ground.

"Well Helga we're all different, aren't we?" Phoebe says a philosophical lilt to her speech.

" Apparently he'd been loafing off them for a considerable amount of time, his wife had left him, and he wasn't making any money. I feel sorry for the man but a person can only be so charitable."

Helga's eyes knit together her expression set against the golden rise of evening.

"Yeah" she says her voice a little far away, "I guess so."

For some reason that she won't decipher the run in with the now homeless Mr. Kokoschka has unnerved her. Her mood, which had been apprehensive at best, has plummeted to downright agitated.

She was nervous before hand and now it's taking all her energy to ignore this fact. The night, which is not really yet night, is filled with happy couples, screaming children, and drunk nine to fivers taking advantage of the late to set sun.

The cool evening breeze isn't calming and every pair of lovers she sees only makes her frown deepen.

'_Maybe I should've let Coulee come with me_' she randomly thinks then balks at how stupid a thought that was. Like she, Helga G Pataki, needed an arm to hold her steady.

'_Don't be wea_k' she chastises silently, ' _It's just a bunch of dorks you used to know, and…_"

She still can't admit that this will be hard. Her little reaction from earlier is testament enough that she's not yet ready to face… him. It's frustrating, she is frustrated beyond belief, because she was over him, is over him, but never the less she still finds it difficult to navigate the complexity that is her feelings for..._ Arnold_.

This infuriating past love is engrained in her in more ways than one. Her notion of something she concocted and the actual person, are confounded, compacted, and buried deep within her psyche, and this makes it all the more harder to admit that he, or the memory of him still holds sway over things inside her.

Boston was lonely, so she missed him, of course, and then Tina left and… So at first, yeah, it had been hard. He was a part of the life that had been wrenched so unceremoniously from her adolescent hands. Arnold had been her passion for so many years, her everything really, and without him, without friends, without the small amount of acceptance and love he and the crew gave her, she withered. She became hollow inside.

Middle school had been a hell, not that she was special in that regard. Yet she felt specifically martyred. Her world became scenes that she lived in shades of grey. Without the combative spitfire side of her character she crumbled inward. Her social presence disappeared with her combative spunky nature. She became a figment, a ghost. At times not even her teachers could remember her name. Her literature professor Mr. Freed paid attention only because her notebooks were filled to the brim with disturbing ink drawings of melting footballs and hearts, bad poems on love and "the dried up well behind her eyes".

That's when she wrote most of her now famous book, in her tortured moments between classes. Just little disjointed scribbles between the bad poems and ugly drawings.

'_God I was such an emo kid'_ she thinks while absently chatting with Phoebe.

'_Shit, I was the original emo kid_'.

She almost laughs, but shakes her head instead, not wanting to let Phoebe in on the joke. They turn another street corner and she takes notice of a flickering streetlight, almost ready to light the oncoming night.

**So I'm gonna try to be still now / ** **Gonna renounce the mill a little while and / ** **If we had a double-king-sized bed / ** **We could move in it and I'd soon forget / ** **That what I am is what I am cause I does what I does /** **And maybe I'd relax, let my breast just bust open / ** **My heart's made of parts of all that surround me** / **And that's why the devil just can't get around me /** **Every single night's alright, every single night's a fight / ** **And every single fight's alright with my brain**

After the worst, _after that night_, things changed. Arnold was no longer the deepest ache, or the freshest wound. He was and old wound yes, and maybe still, but he was an innocent mark that she no longer minded. He had nothing to do with the wound she made herself later on. Maybe she had thought of him, maybe she had remembered his sweet boyish face as she drifted off, but she doesn't see why that should matter. It didn't change what happened next or helped in her recovery. Really she's not sure where she'd be today if she hadn't made a friend. Or if Ace, the first person not from her past to give two shits about her, decided she wasn't worth it.

Ace Hiroyama saved her hide. There was no doubt about it. Even now she is unable to express just how cataclysmic a moment it was when Ace walked in and sat down beside her. For reasons unknown to her even now Ace thought she was worth it.

She hadn't made it easy. Hell, she was a downright bitch, but back then she didn't really know how to make friends, even if she desperately wanted one.

'Ace Bandage' she'd call herself when Helga was being difficult. She was the one to mold her into a semi acceptable human being. Without her, she would've gone down the road of anti social cretin, probably even psychopath. Thanks to her she could speak to people without insulting them, enter a room without disappearing.

'_In fact, you know what ol' brain I'm fine, I'm not the little shit head delinquent I was before. I can spend a few hours at a party for fuck sake!_" she tries once again to calm her rolling stomach.

'_Shit I'm just cranky from waking up so darn early_' she thinks rubbing her sweaty palms on the back of her pants. '_No other explanation, It's not like I give two shits about seeing Rhonda or whoever else is gonna be there_'.

Unfortunately for Helga her internal reassuring isn't really working. No matter how hard she tries she can't trick herself. She's nervous and that's all there is to it.

As she continues to walk the cracked pavement of her old home she allows Phoebe's voice to take over as she drifts further and further into a moody silence.

By the time they reach the warehouse district the sun is a deep red and Helga is completely withdrawn, a war being waged just behind her irises.

Phoebe pauses in her long-winded description on democracy's violent beginnings and exploitation of the proletariat to eye her old friend. She smirks and shakes her head.

'_Oh Helga are you easy to read_'. She thinks, noting Helga's stiff but slouched posture.

She never understood how others could be so blind. To her Helga was an open book. A quick glance at her stance, the way she phrased a bighting comeback, a momentary slip of the tongue made her all the easier to read her.

Phoebe sighs briefly touching the necklace Gerald gave her last Christmas. Maybe she is more aware of such things, yet it always perturbed her that people could be so ignorant of the details. To her it has always been where the truth lies.

"So Helga, you excited to see everyone?" She begins gently, drawing Helga out of herself.

Helga blinks as if she hasn't heard, but then she glances down at her friend and lets out a loud characteristic scoff, her hand waving agitated across her face. "Pshh, come on Phoebes! This isn't a bad 80s movie, it's not like I'm 30 and a struggling writer worrying that I won't measure up to everyone and their stupid careers."

Phoebe chances a grin that she covers with her hand, but Helga's caught on to her.

"You're a sneaky little brat and I hate you." She grumbles as they turn another corner.

Phoebe hadn't asked if she was nervous, she didn't need to in order to get to the quick of the matter.

"So I'm nervous so what! I got a right… I mean they've all probably read that stupid book. They're gonna judge me and make fun of me and, and, why did I let you drag me to this thing!" Helga screams flailing.

Phoebe laughs catching onto a wild gesturing hand and squeezes it. "No one's going to make fun of you Helga. We're not in grade school anymore! And besides I'm sure anyone who speaks out of turn will get a mouthful of fist sandwich. Am a right?" Phoebe giggles swinging Helga's sweating fingers.

"Yeah you're right." Helga says half-heartedly.

Helga stops abruptly and pulls Phoebe in for a hug. The contact is rough and Helga, her head resting on Phoebe's, says sternly "Your not leaving me alone in there got it."

"Well I was going to find-"

"You're not going to leave me"

"But Helga"

"No leaving"

Phoebe sighs patting Helga on the back. "No leaving"

Helga lets go unceremoniously her head picking up to a loud booming sound. As they walk on the echoing gets louder ricocheting of the squat buildings and into their ears.

"Let me guess the house blasting Kanye is where we're going" Helga deadpans.

"What an astute observation" Phoebe snarks back with a smile.

Rhonda's house is a block away from the docks and the only one that is not a cement building meant for storage. As they get closer Helga checks the massive brownstone townhouse and snorts. "Of course" she says and Phoebe titters again. "Yes it is quite handsome, I'm particularly fond of this period of architecture," She says looking up at the old red brick.

A distorted number of drunken teenagers loiter on the stoop. Phoebe smiles, waving to a few, but doesn't stop to introduce her, and for this she's glad.

Helga can already see the crowds past Rhonda's heavy glass doors. Her heart rate picks up again and her hands begin to hurt. She's not good with people, or crowds, or reunions.

Phoebe pushes the front door open and she follows her into small room before another door. There are piles of shoes climbing the walls and jackets thrown willy-nilly. Helga can feel the terror rising. "I'm not taking off my shoes" she quips. Phoebe rolls her eyes.

"Okay I texted her."

They wait for a moment in silence, the loud cacophony of screaming teenagers settling between them. '_You're fine Helga, you're a Pataki, you're not afraid of anything, and most importantly you are not the same girl as before and you're going to prove it to them!'_ Helga tells herself in a last ditch effort to quell her rising panic.

**You want a part of me** / **You want the whole thing / ** **You want to feel something more than I could ever bring / ** **You want it badly** / **You want it tangled** / **I want to feel something more than I was strangled**

A distorted figure dressed in white and red walks languidly to the front doors and pauses dramatically before swinging them open.

"Helga Dahling!"

Rhonda bursts through the doors, a flurry of red and white that tumbles toward Helga at top speed. She pulls her in for a short arm hug, her elbows digging into Helga's sides.

"Oh my lord and don't you look fetching!" she says pushing herself away to get a better look at her.

Helga takes the chance to better judge the ridiculous outfit Rhonda has on. Her shorts are red and high wasted, her ass almost falling out at the bottom, and in place of a shirt, she's wearing a white tasseled Capulet that just hides an American flag bikini top. Helga almost blanches at the ensemble but manages to don a fake smile instead.

"Thanks" She spits out.

Rhonda whips her now long hair behind her, and gives a dismissive hello to Phoebe, before turning back to her honored guest.

"Come in, come in." she coos dragging Helga forward into the front hall.

"So this is my humble abode." Rhonda says a hand resting on a mahogany banister.

"Uh it's ni-"

"Oh my god Helga, I cannot believe you're here right now. Look at you. Why don't you have a Facebook? This is just too shocking." Rhonda interrupts waving a hand full of fake nails at Helga's appearance.

Helga's about to respond when Rhonda lets out a short shriek rushing toward her and taking her hands. "Oh my god Helga I just cannot believe what a super star you are! I must introduce you to everyone."

Rhonda's obviously hopped up on something. Helga's stomach does another roll, and she braves a glance at Phoebe, whose searching eyes are scanning the next room for her boyfriend.

Rhonda, noticing this smiles demurely and turns, "If your looking for that fashionable little man of yours I saw him in the upstairs lounge with Nadine." Rhonda's eyes narrow suggestively and Phoebe takes a glance upwards.

Helga is almost shocked at the obvious manipulation, but just shakes her head, and gives Phoebe one last desperate eyeball before giving up completely.

'So much for no leaving' Helga sighs, and gives a short nod to Phoebe, who grins and begins sprinting up the stairs.

" I'm just going to collect Gerald and I'll be right back." She says to Helga, already racing up the stairs.

"So how bout' a tour?"

**She wants it hallow** / **She wants it tainted / ** **She wants to feel something more than she was naked** / **You want to hide away** / **You're scared to touch it** / **I want to feel something more than I care to take**

Rhonda's already pulling her away from the banister and toward the living room. Helga audibly gulps at the packed doorway. Something terrible with a mass amount of base is pulsing through the walls and she suddenly has the urge to throw up. She makes a conscious effort to collect herself, and takes a deep breath, concentrating on her breathing before following Rhonda past the open doorway.

Stepping into the next room is like walking into a vacuums sealed bag, there is no oxygen.

The place is filled with tangled sweaty bodies, grinding against their inebriated counter parts. Helga, already feeling the air evaporate around her is disturbed by the amount of people who press in on all sides. The smell of sweat and alcohol makes her nose wrinkle as Rhonda drags her through the undulating waves of sticky skin. She grinds her teeth a heat clawing at her throat. For a wild moment Helga is overcome with the fear that this sea will never end. That the claustrophobia settling over her, surrounding like a cloud that smells of acrid meets soggy and tobacco drowned in bubblegum spit, will be as ever present as the fog over LA.

**I fell in love with the sweet sensation / I gave my heart to a simple chord / I gave my soul to a new religion / Whatever happened to you? / Whatever happened to our rock'n'roll?**

"For fuck's sake get a hold of yourself." She says to her chest, an unchained hand striking out as another body stumbles too close her. Helga's always been a girl who enjoys her personal space. This moment is almost unbearable. She's on the verge of a panic attack when the sea breaks. Her head crests above the crowd and Rhonda pulls her up onto mauve, horrible abused, velvet couch.

From this vantage point she can see just how crowded the room really is. Her eyes reach back to the front hall, uncluttered in comparison to the floor of bobbing heads before her.

'All right Helga, look for exit strategies' She thinks scanning the large room.

The room is shaped in an awkward T, the mass of bodies molded by its shape. The denser section, of which she had just traversed, lies directly in front of her. To the right, the top of the T, a game of beer pong is being played. Two bald kids with bullet belts appear to be losing to a pair of girls in ironic pink leotards.

At least she prays they're ironic.

Helga's throat constricts a little more and she silently curses Phoebe for leaving her so quickly.

'I mean come on, the least she couldah done was stuck it out with me till I got my bearings.' She thinks, pulling her hair tie off and undoing her thick braid to deftly tie her long locks off her already sweating neck. She loathes the idea of having to do social gymnastics with a bunch of drunken idiots she's never met before.

**You know you never decide.** / **Why you can't trust their lies. / ** **It's so much pain you can't describe.** / **There's got to be another reason for living.**

Her eyes jump back to the left where Rhonda stands, or struggles to in her ridiculous platform heels. She rolls her eyes and looks on past to the rest of the room. Back farther the crowd tapers off to what looks like a drink table, before extending into another room. Helga lets out a sigh of relief.

"Bingo" she says to no one in particular. ' Now I just gotta find a pathway outah this mess.'

Before she can make a move a prickling sensation causes her to look back up. Back to the oasis, near what she assumes is the kitchen, a flash of eyes peer at her from behind glasses. She frowns, unable to make out his features in the dim light of the next room. He is tall with light colored hair, that's about all she can gather so she turns back to the task at hand. She's focused on nudging some faceless blond with her foot to free up some space when Rhonda cuts the music.

"Shit," she whispers, 'there goes my grand escape'. She straightens, turning back to Rhonda who is addressing the now disgruntled crowd.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, or should I say whores, and well, whores" the crowd laughs and hoots throwing up a few fingers. Helga groans.

"I've got a few announcements to make so listen up!"

Rhonda firmly puts her hands on her hips and takes another wobbly step up onto the couch's armrest. Helga instinctively puts a hand out to steady her but quickly retrieves it embarrassed. What did she care if Rhonda fell on her over attention seeking ass?

'Prolly be funny' she thinks crossing her arms.

"First order of business" Rhonda rapid fires, " a little bit about waste removal. Vomiting should always, if possible, take place outside of the house. Let me stress this further. If you even think about blowing chunks on my floor, furniture, or god help you, inside my closets, well, I'll cut you" she says simply, giving a demure shrug of her shoulders before continuing, "If you see your friends about to blow chunks and do nothing I will cut you. If you Have to vomit and don't want to be cut I suggest you find a toilet, sink, bathtub, or open-air environment. Oh also" She quickly pulls up a jewelry encrusted finger and points distractedly at a random number of her guests. " I don't want anyone seizing or overdosing so best buds watch each other." She says wagging her appendage.

"Okay smokers," A moan of disapproval rises up from the crowd but Rhonda waves it away with a flick of her hand.

"Shut it, you know I love you, hell I'm am one of you but I don't love cleaning up ash from the floor the next morning. So take it outside or find an empty bottle." She quips, checking her nails before breaking into a creepily enchanting smile.

Helga can feel her heartbeat quicken. Something's up, all her nerves pull to the edge and she feels beads of sweat stand out on her brow.

**She wants your image** / **She wants your kiss** / **She wants to get inside your head and tell it like it is** / **You want it badly** / **You want it so complete** / **I want to feel something more cos I can't fuckin' breathe**

"And last but certainly not least, ladies and gentlemen I would like to introduce to you the guest of honor."

'Oh Hell no' Helga thinks, frantically trying to find a way down.

"The author of everyone's favorite new block buster book, the bullies pink ribbon, and my personal friend..."

She all but dropkicks some chick in sequins… but it's to late.

"Helga G. Pataki!"

…and the crowd goes wild…

There is a reason why she had declined to have her image on the dust jacket of her book. Her publisher had begged her, all but got on her knees to get Helga to agree to a photo, but in the end she had firmly refused. She just didn't like the idea of people knowing what she looked like. Hell, it had been hard enough to publish the damn thing in her name, let alone add her mugshot to the mix.

It's not like she thought she was disguising her identity to those who knew her. Sure she had other reasons for declining, but mainly she just wasn't interested in the hassle of being recognized by strangers. She wasn't interested in fame in that sense. She liked the idea of extra cash and prestige but at the time hadn't even entertained the notion of having either. That's not why she wrote. It certainly wasn't why she wrote the book. For her a picture was unnecessary. Her words were portrait enough.

So it pained her to be outed like this, even if she had outed herself earlier today on national television. At least that program was for the old and boring. People she probably wouldn't be at a party with. Luckily it seemed Phoebe's estimation had been a little high, and while some people recognized her from the program, most seemed surprised by her appearance.

If they had seen the program they didn't let on, choosing to repeat how "hot" she was, and how they'd imagined someone uglier, like Barb in her book.

Helga, already sensitive about her "looks" was doing her best to ignore the amazingly rude comments. She had to give it up to herself. She hadn't slapped anyone yet.

Rhonda as was expected, ate up the transferred attention like nutter-butters, dragging Helga from inebriated posse to posse. The worst part of the ordeal was the repetition. Each time they stopped it was the same thing. Rhonda would thrust her into a group and she'd have to struggle through introductions, compliments, and the worst, thinly veiled remarks about Arnold, from those who knew him.

Each time Rhonda, at some point, would throw in, "I've known Helga since we were three, isn't that right darling" to which apparently Helga was not meant to respond. She then would continue on, "She used to be such an ugly duckling, but of course you would never guess to look at her now." Once again, she had to give it to herself; there had been no murders yet.

They were on their fourth group of kids and Rhonda had just used her favorite ugly duckling joke. As was the trend, everyone laughed as Helga tried to slip further within herself without appearing completely disconnected.

'_Fuck do I need a drink right now_' she thinks as Rhonda begins pulling her on to the next destination.

'_What the hell was Phoebe talking about, this bitch hasn't changed_' she thinks pushing at another massive back. In fact, in Helga's opinion, she seemed to have worsened. Her fall from grace only adding to her insecurities.

_'Why am I here'_ she keeps thinking. '_It's been at least fifteen minutes since I've got here and I've yet to see a single familiar face, and apparently, that's the whole point of this fucking excursion, so what the hell_!"

She groans as she nudges through another group of dancing bodies._ 'They probably think of me as some Casper the fucking ghost, I'm a figment of the past to them, or a fucking accessory._' She thinks while shooting Rhonda another evil glare.

'_Why do I want to see any of them anyway, it's not like they liked me. Not like I ever gave them a reason to...'_

She's sweating underneath phoebe's kimono, still stuck in the crowd, and her social reservoir is all but tapped dry. Rhonda's still tugging at her and she wants to rip off her bejeweled hand and make a run for it. She's already feeling transparently despondent and the night's just begun.

While nudging her way through more bodies, some punk, unaware of his flailing dance moves smacks her in the back of the head. The anger that shoots through her is instantaneous. With a growl she whips around ready to rip the insipid green Mohawk from his head. Just as her free hand reaches the idiot she's violently pulled through the rest of the crowd, colliding heavily with Rhonda's back.

"Well if it isn't Helga G. Pataki"

She whirls around, eyes a little wide at the sudden shift in surroundings.

The boy addressing her is dressed all in black, a torn Pogues T-shirt hanging off his wide shoulders. His right hand holds a red plastic cup, a studded cuff wrapped around his wrist. She almost doesn't recognize him. The accent's depleted if not gone completely, and there is little remanence of the gangly hick she remembers from her childhood.

"Stinky Patterson" she says smirking.

"Hot damn, she remembers my name" His voice is soft and syrupy, his cool gaze never wavering.

She can see he's grown into a lady-killer. This boy she left crying by the tree she carved another boys name in. The poetic punk with ripped jeans and oh-so-sexy unwashed hair had once pathetically called her darling in that ridiculously out of place accent of his.

'_He grew up handsome_.' She thinks remembering that week of fabricated affection.

' _But he's still got that beak_' she smiles, a little pleased that his appendage marks him as more interesting than that.

"Hey, Hey Helga, remember me?" A shorter boy to her left buzzes in her peripheral and she's momentarily annoyed until she realizes who it is.

"Sid!" She says surprised. She turns toward him ready to trade pleasantries, when she notes how his eyes are running the length of her body, resting in all the wrong places. Her cheeks color in anger, her momentary cheerful surprise dissipating. He opens his arms for a hug and she stiffly obliges.

She quickly turns back to Stinky, ignoring Sid's eyeballs dropping to her ass.

"So how are ya" Stinky begins his eyes shifting across her face.

"Yeah how's the life of big babe in the city?" Sid adds edging in closer.

Sid apparently, though handsome in his own scummy way, was not as versed in the façade of gentlemanly cool that Stinky was pushing. Not that she was fooled. While Sid might have been obvious, Stinky's act didn't fool her either. Helga frowns. Both of them thought they were hot shots. They both had the studied look of bad boys, with a few conquests between them, but she wasn't impressed. It only depressed her further the way their eyes and body language painted a picture of men who were only interested in one thing, and that one thing certainly wasn't how she was doing.

"Can't complain." She says crossing her arms and effectively breaking Sid's eye line with her bust.

"So what happened to your accent Stink?"

Stinky who had been drinking from his red cup sputters and croaks, "Mah accent?"

"Boy Howdy there it is!" Sid claps letting out a hoot, "He lost it in middle school, kid got mad made fun of" Helga's quick to roll her eyes at Sid's use of slang but he doesn't seem to notice.

"It only comes out when he's a-wooing or too drunk"

"Well I'ma getting there" Stinky says raising the cup back up to his lips while giving Helga a practiced wink.

"Off my booze I might add" Rhonda sniffs. "Well if you two idiots are gonna block the drink table would you at least pour us girls something!"

While Rhonda instructs, Sid turns to Helga hoping to keep her attention.

"So, Helga, Damn girl who would thunk you'd be the one to show us all up." He says giving Helga a playful punch, which comes off as awkward, and an obvious ploy to touch her.

"Yeah… who woulda-" but Sid isn't finished.

"I mean I've even read your book! It was so fuckin' popular my English teacher made it our Final since everyone was reading it already."

Helga has to laugh at that, ' _glad to know I'm the lazy teachers go-to_.'

"Well thanks Sid."

"Yeah, and I mean if I were Arnold I'd be kicking myself for letting you go, cuz damn, did you grow up fine" He finishes, a large grin plastered on his flushed face.

When she doesn't respond immediately Sid's color turns pail, obviously remembering whom he in fact is speaking to.

She's aware that Rhonda and Stinky are deathly silent, their bodies turned towards, what she's sure they think will be a swift beating.

_'yep, boy's got no tact at all._'

She knows what they expect. Knows that if this were ten years ago she'd be cracking the Five Avengers before thrusting Betty into Sid's regretful features. But that wasn't her anymore, not really. Helga was mature enough to admit that she had a violent side, would be the first to make fun of it actually, as it seemed to be what everyone remembers her for.

'_But I'm not nine anymore_' she thinks.

"Relax Sid. I'm not gonna clobber ya. Look," she says, turning to address Rhonda and Stinky. "I get why everyone thinks the book is autobiographical, but its not" She says, a slight edge to her voice to amplify her sentiment. "The people in the book are just characters who, yes I'll admit, are based off of myself and other people I've known in the past. But Roland is not Arnold, and Barb is not me. So don't go saying shit that'll get ya in trouble." she finishes, patting Sid on the shoulder, effectively scaring shit out of him.

"Wow," Rhonda says, handing her a plastic cup filled with some kind of liquor and juice, "You certainly have changed."

Helga takes a tentative sip an eyebrow quirked at Rhonda's comment as well as the drink.

'_shit that's strong…_'

"Uh, thanks. I guess." She says taking another swig. She is beginning to think she'll need a few of these this evening.

"Yeah, for a minute there I thought you were gonna tear Sid a new one." Stinky grins, punching Sid roughly in the shoulder.

"Shit man, fuck, I only meant it as a complement" He says sheepishly as he rubs his bruised arm.

"Stick to your day job honey" Rhonda sneers, and Helga joins in Stinky's laughter, glad the tension has been eased.

Helga casts a glance at Rhonda who seems jittery, her hips shifting back and forth. Her pupils are dilated to there fullest and shoot around the room.

"Oh god, I am so over this." She says turning her back to them. Her attention is then caught by some calamity on the other side of the room "Alan Li, don't you dare jump off that!" and then she's gone, her voice and body disappearing back into the crowd.

"So how long you here for Helga?" Sid asks, his eyes red and half lidded.

" I'm actually back for good, or at least four years."

"Oh shit so you're like going to college here?" his face lights up and Helga inwardly cringes. "yeah you know gotta go somewhere." she says distractedly, wondering for the umpteenth time where Phoebe has gotten to.

"Says you" Stinky interrupts lighting a cigarette.

Helga scoffs and graces Stinky with a mocking expression, "Oh and what are your plans big shot? Opening up your own pumpkin patch?"

Stinky rolls his eyes; an expression of hurt crosses his features. She immediately feels bad, '_there goes my big mouth again._' she thinks.

She knows Stinky had always been insecure as a kid, thinking he was good at nothing. She remembers how ridiculously proud he'd been over his massive green thumb. She hadn't meant to belittle that. For a moment she can see the boy underneath all the cigarette smoke and machismo cool.

"Stinky hasn't grown a pumpkin since the city filled in their backyard" Sid offers shooting his friend a slight sympathetic look.

"Mmhmn that's right, it mighta been a dream once but…" he trails off seeming to mentally check himself. He takes a pull of his cigarette and looks away, "I ain't going to school that's for sure. Nah I've been out for at least a year now. Got my GED and my buddy Joey got me a job working construction. Now" he grins, the male bravado pushing out his chest, "I'm rollin' in the dough."

"Well good for you" Helga smiles and for the first time all evening the action is sincere. She's glad one of her old mates is doing well, construction job or not.

"What about you Sid, you going to college?" She asks politely taking another swig of the contents of her cup.

Sid shrugs his shoulders, a light pink tinging his cheeks.

"Uh? Another year at hillwood high?"

Stinky snorts and slaps his knee and Helga tries not to laugh along with him. She's starting to enjoy their dynamic, a nostalgic wave fluttering over her.

"Hey dude, it's not funny" Sid whines, socking stinky in the chest. The taller boy sobers, a flash of violence flaring in his eyes.

"Yo, fuck off man. It's your own damn fault. I already told you to get your GED and come work with me" He says rubbing his solar plexus.

Sid huffs, jabbing a thumb at himself, "Hey man I already got job. Speaking of…" He turns to Helga and runs a hand through his greased black hair, " if you need any party favors tonight" He leans in conspicuously, "look no further, I got your regs, meds and highs, some great stuff from my connect in Cali, uppers downers, mali, and some nice nose candy. Interested?"

Helga is about to respond in the negative when Rhonda breezes into the conversation seemingly from nowhere. "Sid stop trying to sell my guests your shitty drugs." She turns to Helga, wrapping an arm around her waist making her tense. "Honey if you need some yayo I've got some delectable product upstairs, on me of course." She purrs, the whites of her eyes shot through with red and purple.

Then just as quickly she turns to Stinky and screams, "Did I not just say to smoke the fuck outside!" She grabs his burning cigarette and takes a puff and throws it into his drink, "really manners" she says grabbing on to Helga's arm again and pulling her back into the crowd.

"Fuck you Rhonda" the two call in unison, but they're already far off, the crowd blocking them from her view.

"They really are the dullest bunch, but you know I thought you'd like to play catch up. Shall we resume the tour?"

They've reached the front hall and stairway and Helga briefly considers just walking out the door.

'_I've made it this fa_r' she thinks

"Sure princess, lead on"

Rhonda smiles "oh you and your nicknames. No one's called me that in ages."

The stairway is littered with stray teens, all of whom need introductions. One girl has seen her on Regis and Kelly but only because she'd spent the morning in the hospital. Helga who can clearly see the girl has been crying refrains from asking the obvious question. Rhonda however is not as discreet.

"Abortion" the girl mutters.

**What'd I say to her** / **Why'd I say it to her / ** **What does she think of me** / **That I'm not what I ought to be** / **That I'm what I try not to be / ** **It's got to be somebody else's fault** / **I can't get caught** / **If what I am is what I am, cause I does what I does** / **Then brother, get back, cause my breast's gonna bust open / ** **The rib is the shell and the heart is the yolk and / ** **I just made a meal for us both to choke on** / **Every single night's a fight with my brain**

By the time they reach the top step she's finished her drink and is finally feeling it's woozy affect, yet instead of feeling social, she feels socially allergic. Rhonda flitters around her an erratic mish-mash of insecure nerves. Helga feels almost out of reach to her. The erratic hyperactive energy she exerts shoots right past, leaving a cold distance that Helga finds impossible to breach.

'_Innocence fucking los_t' she thinks.

"Sorry bout that downer. Marianne is always getting abortions, the little whore, but we love her" she says flippantly, before turning away from her.

The second floor is like a completely separate party. Right off the landing the space opens up into a wide living room stocked with lounge chairs and throw rugs. The space is polluted with pseudo intellectuals apparently discussing the state of the current presidency.

"In there's the think tank." She says turning away from the room. "I'd introduce you but they're kind of a bore. There's a second bathroom back there if you need one and there's another here. She says trotting down the adjacent hallway and tapping a door on her left.

She then turns a massive grin on her face. Opposite the bathroom is what Helga can only guess is Rhonda's room.

"Okay listen, I don't just let anyone in my boudoir, but since we're such old friends," She flips open a mettle lock and fingers the combination. "819, Coco Chanel's birthday, if you want to, you know later on, take a breather or need a private place." She smirks, "to talk, you can come here. Just no hanky-panky on my bed."

Helga suppresses a frown. 'Like the smirk wasn't enough' she thinks.

"Yeah thanks."

Rhonda pulls the lock and turns the knob.

At first glance of Rhonda's inner sanctum, it was clear to Helga that the girl had never gotten used to a life without a maid. Clothes and jewelry, old magazines, makeup, and empty cartons littered every available surface. The room while large, only added to the monstrosity of its messiness. On top of that the place smelt like too many perfumed magazines and something else clawingly feminine.

The only thing Helga could say she envied was the far wall and it's deep-set windows, and the massive four poster bed in the center of the room.

Rhonda ran over to it and fell, rolling around in rumpled satin sheets.

"Ugh the life of a hostess is sooo hard" she says, kicking off her massive platform heels.

"You don't have any bud do you?" Before Helga can say no Rhonda continues, "Oh right, no matter"

Helga enters heading toward the cluttered bureau by the right wall. She leans against it and faces Rhonda, who has sat up, her eyes wide and manic.

"You like my bed?" She says throwing her arms wide. The thing is something out of a dickens novel. Helga shrugs. The black velvet of the canopy cloth is a little heavy for her taste, but she can't deny that it's cool.

"I got it brought over from our house in Italy… before we lost it" She finishes lamely.

There was a short silence. Helga scratches at the bug bite on her elbow. The moment had suddenly turned awkward. Helga has nothing to say and Rhonda seems to be running out of things to show her.

Rhonda sits up further to rest her feet on the ground and Helga decides to try and speak.

"Yeah it's definitely a nice place you got going here. Are you renting or…" She asks for no other reason than to keep the conversation going.

"Oh god no, we're not that poor, who to told you I was renting?" Rhonda scoffs, "Daddy bought this place for me. He thought it would be a good investment. You know being so close to the water. The areas bound to go up in property val….ahhh"

Helga starts. Rhonda who has fallen back on the bed, is wriggling back and forth.

It looks as if she's having a drug-induced seizure and Helga is about to step forward and investigate when a high pitched giggle starts from her mouth.

"Rhonda, what the fuck..."

"Oh my god, please mercy, stop STOP you crazy baboon!"

Helga jumps back as a figure dressed all in black emerges from underneath the petty coat of the massive bed. The man grabs Rhonda's foot once more and continued his torturous tickling.

"You are right to call me a baboon my love for my butt and heart are red with passion for you"

" Ugh you are so disgusting!" She shrieks a laugh in her throat.

"You mean I thrill you! Ah me amore." And with that the couple entangle themselves further. Rhonda letting out shrieks of pleasure while the man bites at her neck and collarbone.

"Uhh" Helga is both weirded out and confused.

Both turn at her utterance. Rhonda's face is flushed, the boy's is full with a manic grin that seems to swallow his face.

Almost immediately the stranger leaps from the bed landing inches from Helga's face.

"What the-"

"Ah so it is the great white shark, the impenetrable fortress mommy, the masked invader Helga, Helga, Helga, the Horrible, back to reclaim her love and crown as queen of the playground!"

The kid's eyes are black pools, his pupils dark voids that eat up the surrounding white. He is painfully skinny and unattractive by popular standards. His over bight and pallid skin stand out against the black grease of his hair. He looks like a cross between Serge Gainsbourg and Buddy Holly she thinks.

'_If some crazy scientist ever used their genetics to make a baby..._' Then she realizes.

"CURLY!"

Helga's voice jumps an octave in surprise. She pauses and takes a look closer. "What are you on?"

"I am on the moon where I am no longer the Curled Crusader but Thaddeus Gammelthorpe the immaculate antelope running through the vast landscape of love with my beauty." He says throwing his head back at Rhonda who smiles and rolls her eyes.

"Baby how much acid did you take"

Curly pauses then turns half way to reply. "Only 4 my lady since you instructed no less than 2 no more than 5"

I said _**ONLY 2**_ because of last time you idiot"

But her voice is surprisingly soft.

"Wow did not see this coming" Helga says aloud.

The couple turns and Curly bounces back over to her.

"But you hoped, I know," He says silencing her with a finger to her lips.

"Because you felt the sting of unrequited love just as much as I"

He hugs her then, his feverish doped up body presses insistently against her. She can feel the twitchy heartbeat, all the sinew strained in his neck against her shoulder where his head rests.

Her lungs cave in, the strange wet mossy smell claws at her throat.

'_Personal space. Personal space_.'

She steels her spine and sucks in a breath of air. She will not be reactionary.

"Don't get too cozy there soul sister. " She deadpans.

Her hands grasp his shoulders and she slowly pries him off of her. She doesn't yell or act out, the motion is surgical.

"Ah see her walls how they sparkle…" Curly says to no in particular. His hands play in the air between them making Helga lean back farther.

"Down idiot savant"

Rhonda says as she stands and walks over to them.

Curly turns distracted and lunges for Rhonda's feet yet again. She gives a half laugh and half shriek and playfully smacks him on top of his head smiling softly down at him.

Helga's shoulders pinch for some reason.

_'Jealous.'_

She crosses her arms briefly frowning.

"Don't mind him he's just off on his own trippy little adventure."

Helga forces a smile and shrugs.

"So how'd this happen anyway. I mean Phoebe keeps me moderately updated but she didn't say anything about this".

"Oh well it's a pretty new development" She says letting her hand drift back to Thad's head.

He was playing with the lace of a discarded braw, completely oblivious to the world around him.

"It was so cliché but ridiculously romantic. You know how it goes" She pauses her eyes twitchy and unfocused. She scratches her nose.

" He cornered me at prom and poured his pathetic little heart out. I'd just been in another bad breakup with some handsome bastard and I was tired of being treated like" She stops, her face transforming to a blank sadness.

For a moment Helga can see deep inside the girl in front of her. It's brief but powerful, leaving her with a feeling of sympathy that she is unaccustomed to. But then it's gone and Rhonda is digging into her back pocket.

"And then this little darling" she says pulling Curly to his feet, "Came back into my life and made me see that I was worth something again."

"You're worth all of the stardust in the galaxy!"

"Speaking of stardust" Rhonda grins pulling out the coke from her pocket.

Curly reaches for it but his hand is smacked away. "You can't have any silly." She turns to Helga, "But you can." She winks cheerily walking past Helga to her cluttered vanity where she proceeds to take a seat and quarter off some white, arranging it in two nice concise lines.

"No thanks"

Helga's having a hard time keeping up, for a second there she felt like Rhonda wasn't just the vapid empty shell she perceived her to be, but now that impression is gone. Her gaudy party façade is once again screwed on tight and ready for the rest of the evening.

"Never tried it before?" Rhonda asks holding a hollowed out pen to her nose. Her head dips down and a horrible snort hurtles from her throat.

"Rhonda share the fairy dust baby"

Rhonda's head comes up her eyes rolling; she replies, her voice fast and strange.

" No Thaddeus, none for astronomers. This stuff will make your head explode. You'll have bad dreams."

"I've done it before" Helga finally responds, " Just not into it right now." She goes to take another sip of her plastic cup but quickly realizes it's empty. She sets it down.

"Well" Rhonda bounces from her seat, the obvious "pep" back in her step. "I think it's time to continue the tour. We haven't seen everything yet!" She winks again grabbing Helga's hand. Briefly Helga wonders why she feels it's necessary. It's not like she's not going to follow.

"You coming darling?" Rhonda says to Thad as she moves quickly towards the door.

" If it's the roof my darling I will not go. But-" He pauses dramatically grasping the two of them by a shoulder.

"Your journey begins there" He says his black pupil eyes looking through Helga's.

"He's waiting the king of the courtyard, his crown askew, but maybe you dear dreamer can right your heart enough to let him fix himself while fixing you. He is a man who needs incentive, yes."

Helga's eyes tense and she catches herself from acting out. It's pointless to stare down an empty cave she realizes. Instead her nose flares instinctively and Curly backs of grinning.

"Darling don't be a weirdo" Rhonda drolls opening the door.

"Okay Mon Cheri" Helga watches as he makes a low bow, just before the door swings closed his eyes land back on hers knowingly.

"Hopefully he'll peak it out in there before going downstairs. He can be such a nuisance on hallucinogens." She laughs taking a step toward the mettle ladder that leads to the roof.

"I see"

"You're just going to die when you see my view" Rhonda says grabbing the first rung of mettle. She begins to climb.

'_He's up there_'

She knows it. She can feel it like a pressure drop before a heavy rain. Just like the sinus pressure that she suffers from in spring.

'_Well that makes sense_' she thinks, '_I always was allergic to the little twerp_.'

Her heartbeat quickens. She wants to say _'I'm afraid of heights_' and take the coward's way out. Back out down the stairs and tell phoebe she's got a stomachache. Hide in the bathroom till the party dies down and sneak out. But she knows she can't, that any measure of avoidance would be obvious. Her pride won't let Rhonda think she's afraid, afraid of seeing him.

The latch opens and Rhonda looks back and down at her.

"You coming?"

She quiets her heart. She quiets her mind. She knows who she is. They have been apart so long. She knows who she is apart from him. She had been so young and now she knows it's just leftover nerves. She is strong. She is Helga G. Pataki. She is famous and Arnold is only a boy she used to know.

"Yeah criminey give me a second."

She grasps the white railing and ascends upwards.

**So there you have it. I was on the verge of making it two chapters but thought ya'll would like the long read.**

**I realize it might be annoying to read about a character who isn't around yet, but Ace is important. She and Helga have a history separate from the world of Hillwood. We all make friends and have histories apart from our childhood selves and Helga is changed and made different by this, naturally. Those of you who love Sid I want ya'll to know I'm not a hater. I just know a lot of guys. Maybe he'll redeem himself later.**

**As always let me know how I'm doing! REVIEW!**

**Next up the fated renuion DUN DUN DUN!**


	12. The Reunion

**Authors note: Ok I'm just gonna get this out here since ya'll have been waiting so patiently. Thanks again for all the wonderful reviews. You guys really make my day. I even managed to piss a few of you off with my little cliff hanger didn't I :P - you've waited long enough so here it is, the reunion. Happy reading Ya'll!**

_L__ay your head where my heart used to be_

_Hold the earth above,_

_lay down in the green grass_

_remember when you loved me_

_- Tom Waits 'Green Grass'_

Arnold is a daydreamer. He knows this, is well aware of his ability to create persuasive realities right in front of his half lidded eyes.

Gerald used to tease him when they were younger. A lot of the kids did actually. He get's why, it's a little weird to act out fantasies as if alone.

Mountains of ice cream, piloting a plain, a pretty girl smiling at him, it didn't matter, they all seemed equally convincing before the cloud of imagination disappeared and he was left in some awkward situation. Kids do that though; act out their fantasies as if they're real. Usually it's something that you do less and less as you get older. Not Arnold, to this day he finds himself breaking from reality only to come crashing down to earth once his dreaming is done.

That is why he's so nervous, harmonica in hand, on Rhonda's roof.

He has done _a lot_ of daydreaming about Helga G. Pataki. He has spent hours imagining her into his life. The one person he could talk to, be open with, love and be loved. That person was a figment of his imagination and in only a few moments he'll be faced with the real thing.

Once that happened he would have to accept her as the person she turned out to be and not the perfect woman he had created while trying to dodge misery.

He shakes his head exasperated. He feels stupid for acting this way.

Arnold leans his lower torso against the steady red brick and gazes across the industrial buildings.

It's just that she had made such an impression on him. That terrifying equally amazing girl had dug in deep, leaving a considerable mark in his mind.

He shakes his head again as if to dispel the thought.

He doesn't know her. What little he does remember isn't all that pleasant. No, not until he dissected it three ways till Sunday did her meanness wash away to the insecurity of an adolescent girl.

'Who confessed she loved me'

He idly breathes into his harmonica listening to the way it echoes down into the streets bellow.

He's not sure how that confession (which he ignored at the time) grew into the bases for all his fantasies. He's not sure how his grade-school bully morphed into his long lost love. But it didn't matter. It just was, and as much as he'd like to shrug it off, act like any other dude and ignore the romantic possibilities, it's all he can think of. He wants that, needs that kind of contact again.

Lila was… well Lila had never really filled that dead spot, the cold part that was born the minute his parents walked out the door, that spot that kept on growing after his grandfather's death. He desperately needed to love and be loved and for some insane reason, he thought maybe, it was meant to be her.

"Ugh stop it…" he says aloud, bringing his lips away from the harmonica to lean further forward.

"HEY, Mr. tambourine man! Hey play a song for me!"

A group of drunken youths stare up at him, there hands out pointing. He smiles thankful for the interruption from his moody thoughts.

He searches his mind for a song to play. His nerves are getting the best of him again and concentrating on something else would help tremendously.

He brings the well-worn piece of mettle to his lips and gives it a good blow. He bends the note, pressing his tongue and lips in. Closing his eyes he begins on a song he copied from an old television show. It's a real bluesy tune with a lot of tremolo and hand cupping. He hears hollering from bellow, some drunk scatting, but he ignores it, once again lost in the music.

He's still playing when he hears the roof latch open and fall back with a clang.

"You coming?"

He jumps a little recognizing Rhonda's voice. This is it. He knows Helga is with her. He hears a sharp reply muffled by the cement and then footfall on mettle as someone climbs. His stomach tightens but he continues brushing his lips against the reed. He's got to keep his cool.

'Look cool, play the harmonica, be cool' He thinks.

Rhonda says some asinine comments about her view, and then he hears the clang of the latch as it shuts.

_This is it._

"He's real good isn't he?" Rhonda whispers not far behind him.

_This is it_. In mere seconds he'll turn around to face her.

His internal clock begins a countdown.

3

"Oh Arnolds darling, look who I've brought you!"

2

He stops playing.

1

He turns.

His heart beats; his hands drop to his sides, the harmonica pushed quickly into his back pocket, he raises his head - and there she is - Helga G. Pataki.

There's a beat of silence.

"Hi"

"Hi"

"Oh my God this is too precious! You guys are so adora-"

"Rhonda!" Nadine's head emerges from the open latch, her brow crisscrossed in agitation.

"Rhonda get you're ass in here, Thad's lost his fuckin' marbles. He thinks Lara's a space monster or some shit."

Rhonda whirls around obviously pissed at the interruption.

"Well, maybe if she wasn't wearing that atrocious feather on her head" She says dismissively.

"I agree it's awful, but that don't change the fact that he's chasing her around the house."

"Oh for fuck's sake just tie him up and lock him in my room! Can't you see I'm entertaining?" She says gesturing back at the two of them.

He catches Helga's eye roll and they share a quick timid smile.

"Yeah um, nah, guess what, I'm not chasing YOUR boyfriend around with some fucking rope while you play Patti Stanger."

Rhonda scoffs at the idea but Nadine turns her attention to Helga.

"Wattup girl long time now see! How goes it?"

Helga turns away from him and he steps closer taking a moment get a good look without her noticing.

It was strange how only hours ago he'd seen her on Television for the first time in years. If he was surprised then, he's overwhelmed now. Up close like this he can see all the intricacies of her face, the little things the camera obscured and veiled. He's not sure why they would try and hide any of her, she's even more beautiful in person.

She has a small scar on her right eyebrow he notices. It cuts the hairs in two creating wings that end in sharp little wisps on the side of her face. As she smiles at Nadine her upper lip curls inwards showing off her pretty teeth. He almost laughs noticing she has sharp canines.

'Of course she does' he thinks.

His eyes curve down her jaw and slender neck. She'd changed since the show. His fingers twitch wanting to touch the soft red silk of the kimono top she has on.

'Red looks good on her' It matches her stance, her legs spread and a hand propped against a jutted hip.

Her hair is different too. Loose from the braid he had seen on TV it now was tied atop her head in a messy bun.

For the briefest of moments his heart speeds up. The memory of the shadow beneath his window resurfaces but just as quickly he discards the thought. '_What are the odds right?'_

He likes it though, the way knotted tendrils loose from the bun spiral about her face and neck. Her hair is so wild and messy, like she never brushes it, and yet at the same time it looks effortlessly cool.

All of a sudden he's somewhere else. Salty warm wind blows across his brow as he softly detangles ropes of Helga's long blond hair. She's a mermaid and he's carefully picking seashells and starfish from her golden head.

He smiles content.

"What the fuck! Get off me! Curly back the fuck down you idiot I don't want to hurt you. Rhondaa come on!"

Arnold snaps back to reality. Helga is looking at him oddly. He blushes embarrassed and quickly drops the goofy grin he'd apparently been sporting.

He turns towards the commotion stepping forward to help. Looking down the hatch he sees Thad's twisted face as he pulls on Nadine's foot.

"Angel of repair! Watch out for languid loogies, they have to talk it up to spit it out… Arg!"

"See what I'm dealing with here?" Nadine says sarcastically looking up at him.

"OK, OK enough of this. I'm coming down" Rhonda sighs dramatically moving towards them.

Nadine drops down and Rhonda climbs in the hole stealing a look at both of them.

"Well, play nice you two." She grins before lowering herself and closing the latch.

They are alone on the roof now and the stupid fairies that have been tormenting him awake anew.

"She hasn't changed much" Helga says behind him.

He turns hoping he looks friendly and not frightened. A bundle of nerves have gotten tangled around those stupid fairies in his gut. Now that it's just the two of them there's nothing to hide behind, but she's not looking at him. Her eyes are on a spot half way between him and the exit. He hides a wince, she looks vaguely pissed, but then maybe it's apprehensive. He was never really good at reading girls, or maybe it was just her especially, that he was never good at reading.

"I'm guessing she gave you a tour."

"Yeah" her voice is sarcastic and humorous but her eyes still avoid him. She looks up at the purple sky her long neck exposed then down passed his shoulder to the rest of the city. His throat tightens.

From her spot by the wall to him by the latch something has sprung up. It's thick and heavy, he can feel the awkwardness build upon it with each passing moment of silence. He mentally curses Rhonda and every other busybody who'd put such pressure on their meeting today. If only their reunion had come naturally without the added drama.

Yet it was funny, like usual the drama was of her doing. That book of hers aired something that had always been secret and between them. He'd never told anyone about her confession, or even mentioned their confusing relationship. No one else had known in the slightest and now no one really understood.

So in the end it was her fault, her and that book that was about him but not.

"I saw you on television today" He finally blurts. It was one of his icebreaker lines he'd planned earlier while sweating bullets in the prospects of seeing her again. Luckily it seems to work.

"Oh god please say you didn't" She's rubbing her forehead and laughing. It's the laugh that keeps him from swallowing his tongue. She's nervous too.

"Yeah," He says taking a few steps closer to her his voice regaining some of its assuredness.

"It was really bizarre actually, my Grandma called me into the TV room all exited saying Eleanor Roosevelt was on TV" He notes her small facial change as he says this but continues, "Which I thought was odd, since we don't allow her to watch the History channel anymore."

He blushes scratching the back of his neck. He didn't want to get into why.

Luckily Helga seems disinterested to the latter part of the sentence. She's biting her lip, a pensive look in her eyes. Arnold watches as her teeth bore into the slightly smaller pink flesh transfixed. It's something his Helga, the figment he had created, did in his dreams. Now he realizes it was a true characteristic of the genuine article. He had stolen it for his own purposes. He blushes and looks away.

All of a sudden her hand flies up to her head and in one deft motion she removes the band holding her hair. The tangled mess falls heavily on and around her shoulders creating a gold main accented red by the overcast sky and city lights.

"You know what, she used to call me that when we were little… Crazy ol' bird I could never figure out why." She says her eyes rolling upward and a small smile curving her lips.

_She's so pretty_

"She liked you." He says, almost omitting the She for I. He can't get over how pretty she's become, how strange and effective her aura is on him.

The comment snaps Helga back from her remembering. Her now focused gaze, or really her eyes and how the neon orange of the sky make them appear purple, startle him and he nervously stutters, " you know, cuz you were so brazen and all, I think she saw a bit of herself in you, you know when she was younger."

"Brazen?" Helga's mouth quirks again and it's a gesture Arnold realizes he recognizes from childhood. The almost smile she allowed her face to take on when something amused her.

"What are you trying to say you weren't?" He guffaws enchanted. "You managed to break into my house on multiple occasions!"

He's surprised at himself for letting that slip; that he knew of those times she broke in uninvited. He expects her to deny it, maybe even whack him a good one, instead she cracks a real smile doubling over in fits of laughter.

"Ahhaha oh oh fuck, ha, I forgot about that!" she says leaning back and wiping her eyes

"How'd you finally figure that out? I thought you'd like, blanked it from your memory, seeing how oblivious you always were."

Arnold chuckles dryly at himself. " Well uh, huh I didn't. Phoebe kinda hinted and then my grandpa saw you running out the door one time and grandma… but hey you did fall out of my closet while I was playing cards with the guys! Or was it the couch?"

The wind picks up and Helga's face is masked by waves of blond. Arnold almost slides back into his momentary daydream. For a moment he sees pearls in her hair.

"It was the couch" She smiles holding a bunny eared hand and hooking some gold behind her head with the other. "Brazen isn't two far off but I would've used a less polite word" She laughs and then asks, " So how are your grandparents doing anyway?"

Arnold's gut drops. He wants to curse or jump off the roof. Something, lie maybe. She looks genuinely interested and she's smiling at him and they'd finally gotten into a normal rhythm of conversation. She's pretty and interesting and he doesn't want her pity. He knew the question was coming but still he's not prepared. He's never prepared.

" Uh, you know" He smiles weakly. "As good as they can be I guess. I'm sure my grandpa's having a ball eating all the raspberries he wants without consequences up in the big blue yonder"

"-oh fuck Arnold –"

"and my grandma's perfectly content degenerating into a child who has an odd fascination with the history channel, except you know, when she forgets how to use the toilet and shits herself."

He meant it as joke. He really did, somehow he thought it would come out better that the usual 'one's dead the other's dying so, you know, just peachy.'

He's looked away from her unable to meet her gaze. He can't stand it, he can't face the look of pity that he's seen a million times from others written on her face.

He breathes in finally raising his head to look at her.

Helga's only staring at him though, a perplexing look in her purple eyes. It isn't the reaction he's expecting and it leaves him a little baffled.

'At least she's not tearing up or anything' he thinks, his eyes darting to and from her.

She continues staring and he finally grows impatient enough to speak first.

"I'm sorry I-"

"No I'm sorry," she says cutting him off. " I'm an asshole. I knew about Phil. Phoebe told me when it happened. I was pretty bent outah shape about it. Him going out like that. I kinda always thought he'd live to be the oldest guy in the world or something, you know, getcha another Guinness world record."

Arnold lets loose a puff of air that sounds almost like a laugh. "yeah me too." He says his eyes lowering to Helga's shoes. They're the same ones she wore on TV.

"But I didn't know about Gertie. Alzheimer's?"

The way she says it, straight forward without pretension takes away the embarrassing lump in his throat. He wants to kiss her. Lila couldn't even manage an, ' I'm sorry' without sounding disingenuous and confused. Like it was his fault for making her feel that way.

"Yep." He shrugs his shoulders relaxing. "Apparently she's had it for some time."

For some reason he doesn't feel as bad as he thought he would talking about it. Her voice is caring but also nonchalant. Like tragedy was commonplace to her. Nothing to cry about.

"Shit" Helga frowns.

"I was surprised as hell that she even remembered you, but there you were, looking all cool and stuff making fun of Regis."

"Well you know I'm pretty unforgettable being so cool and stuff" She shrugs her eyes fluttering down to her feet, clad in those ridiculously hip shoes.

Silence hangs in the air between them, a few people wander up onto the roof claiming an opposite corner away from them.

He wants to say, "I know" or "you've got no idea" but all of a sudden he's got a terrible case of cottonmouth.

"Every child is spoiled by time and tragedy huh?" Helga says her eyes finally fluttering back up and past his shoulder.

"yeah… I guess so."

His heart expands because he gets what she means.

Her eyes click back to his and he can feel himself logging away the moment. Because they are definitely having a moment.

"Well" He shakes his head " I don't know about you but I could use an upper. You smoke?"

He says fingering the bag Gerald left him. "Cigarettes? Yeah but I wouldn't have pegged you-"

"No no, weed, mary-jane you now the green stuff. You smoke cigarettes? You should quit they-"

"WHAT!"

Helga's jaw hangs open and a delightful curve to her lip pulls at each edge.

"No way. Arnold Shortman indulges in illegal substances. I'm stunned, I'm shocked, I'm fricken' amazed over here! My whole idea of you has been sullied" she states obviously pleased.

Arnold frowns "idea of me?" he asks, he's both happy and perplexed at the thought. "Um, is that a no, are you like a 'straight edge' or something, if so that's cool I just thought-"

"Arnold I've been rollin' blunts since I was 13 I just never thought you'd be into that kinda stuff. You being such an award winning goody two-shoes and all. "

She's teasing him just like she used to but this time he welcomes it.

"Heh you said it yourself, what can I say I'm just your average jaded teenager." He quips mirroring her smile.

She juts her hip and narrows her mischievous eyes.

"Yeah but I bet you've never done acid" Arnold smirks happy to surprise her.

"Gasp! Shrooms?" He shrugs

"Double gasp!

Arnold chuckles his cheeks glowing. She's flirting. He thinks she's flirting. Her face is bright and open and her eyes pull at his in a way that makes him want to giggle. Which is why he says something stupid. " Hey I couldn't stay your perfect golden boy forever."

She's not smiling when he looks back up.

"Listen here bucko, I don't know…"

She falters, her hands halfway between them. He realizes he's leaned back, a preemptive hand at his collar where she used to like to grab him.

Her face softens and the anger all but leaves her and he's instead faced with a nervous glare.

"I just want to get one thing straight. I don't know if you read my book or if someone just filled you in on the details, but I've been getting it from every angle since I got here so I'm only gonna say this once. You. Are. Not. Roland. Granted he's based off of-"

"I know"

"And I will admit I had a small crush-" "I know- wait what"

"on you and- Wait what?"

Helga's head bows, his heart flips.

'She did have a crush on me!' But he knew that, and yet he still can't ignore the pleasure he feels having her say it.

"I know I'm not Roland, I know. You think you're tired of hearing it, try being tormented for the last month of school cause Rhonda wanted to play literary critic."

A bubble of unintended laughter brakes from somewhere inside the curtain of Helga's hair. A blue eye peaks out from behind a fizzy section of tresses.

"oops, I guess I should've waited till we graduated to publish, huh?" He smiles down at her, glad that she seems comfortable once again.

"Would've been nice." He smirks.

They stand there both leaning against ledge of the roof. The summer heat is pushed back by small bouts of wind coming from the harbor. Arnold feels funny looking down at the girl who used to have to pull him up by his shirt just so they could be eye to eye. It was somehow silently satisfying to be at least a few inches taller then her now.

"So how bout that smoke?"

**Authors note: R/R pleaseeeee**


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